From Bitter Waters to Sweet

Freedom of Ideas

2012-02-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, I had lost a blog post that I wanted to link here a few days ago. I was getting ready to look for it, but is found me by linking one of my blog posts. Boy, does that make life easier.

Sallie Borrink points out how the Internet has helped women find their freedom.

http://sallieborrink.com/the-internet-and-freedom-for-christian-women/

I would add that the internet has helped countless silenced women find their God-given voices.

Here is one of my favorite verses in the Psalms.

^{Psalm 68:11} The Lord gives the command;
The women who proclaim the good tidings are a great host:

Could it be that, besides referring to the time it was written, that this verse could also be looking forward to this day when a great host of women are actually given the opportunity to proclaim good tiding through the power of technology?

I've heard grumblings from some men that are not happy about this new found freedom that women have. I've heard grumbling and shamings from certain men who don't want women to have so much freedom. These men fear the freedom of their women. Otherwise, why would thy work so hard to bring women under the bondage of religions and legalism?

Yet, God has called us to freedom.

And one of the good tidings that women are proclaiming is:

GOD DOES NOT FAVOR MEN OVER WOMEN. God is not the author of the injustices that certain men have done against women in His name. The hierarchy that certain men have been enforcing over women is based in the traditions of men and have nothing to do with the heart of God.

This is good news. These are good tidings of great joy.

When some men make it their ministry and life work to tell women to sit down and shut up in church or anywhere, they are NOT speaking with authority from God. They are bullying from their own broken and deceitful hearts. And we don't have to listen to them. The voice of a stranger, we shall not follow (John 10:5). We will follow the voice of the Shepherd who, for freedom's sake, set us free. (Gal 5:1)

Rumors of God's Patriarchy...

2012-02-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

...have been greatly exaggerated.

Some titles are so good, I wish I had come up with them. Like the one above.

But I didn't. My friend, Retha from South Africa did.

https://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/rumors-of-gods-patriarchalism-have-been-greatly-exaggerated-part-1-zelophehads-daughters/

And here's another freebie:

http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/the-greatest-commandment-embraces-equality/

Yeah, I know. Link Junction January is over. But I keeponalinking.

Women Who Have It Worse

2012-02-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

A little break from griping about Driscoll.

Islamic couple and son are found guilty of honor killings in Canada. It's a sick world we live in:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=1525482

Third world nation girls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWa9jmv3u90&feature=related

One of the reasons we are fighting gender discrimination is because it is being exported by men like Piper and Driscoll. Other countries have enough problems without the True Gospel being contaminated and turned into something else, a gender gospel.

Experience from Inside Mars Hill

2012-01-31T05:00:00.000-08:00

Another couple links on this last day of Link Junction January:

http://twocleareyes.blogspot.com/2012/01/mars-hill-altar-of-doctrine-and-occult.html#!/2012/01/mars-hill-altar-of-doctrine-and-occult.html

http://marshillrefuge.blogspot.com/2012/01/questions.html#comment-form

I added the above, Mars Hill Refuge, to my blog list.

(No guarantee that I will stop my linking frenzy just because we are running out of January.)

Steamrolled by Driscoll Back in 2007

2012-01-30T05:13:00.000-08:00

Bent Meyer was. He was a part of Driscoll's church, saw some things that concerned him, and was fired, excommunicated, and spoken badly about by Driscoll.

He has shown up over at The Wartburg Watch and has added his voice to the voices of concern that are sounding the alarm over there.

But I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to hear it better from WTH, my friend who is trying to stay as objective a possible while he also raises concerns over Driscoll.

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/01/bent-meyer-posts-on-wartburg-watch.html

(Hits are still coming concerning Grace, her blog, her affair, her lie, etc. I find it to be very interesting.)

Edited to add some other good news:

http://freedom4captives.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/48-a-bit-troubling/

Abuse at Mars Hill

2012-01-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

As the hits keep coming here looking for Grace Driscoll's blog, Mars Hill is dealing with a lot of accusations of abuse.

I know the doctrine is abusive on more levels than I can talk about.

Here's a few links concerning it.

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/01/26/run-baby-run-personal-insights-on-mars-hill-and-mark-driscoll/

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/01/27/mars-hill-and-mark-driscoll-under-scrutiny-while-another-painful-story-emerges/

And here is some good insight from my friend Shirley:

http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/look-whos-doing-the-exploitation/

Link Junction January is almost over, but we'll see how many more links I can get in before the month is up.

Womanhood Confusion and 12 Step Recovery

2012-01-26T04:02:00.000-08:00

Just call me the blog link junction this month.

All I seem able to do is link other people's blog posts. And I'm okay with that. I hope you are too, and I hope any new visitors will be as delighted over some of the things I'm finding in the blogsphere.

The two I have today aren't as related as the title of this post makes them look. I'm not linking a 12 step recovery for Womanhood Confusion, I just have two unrelated posts that, for women, might have a bit of a connection, but I leave that for the individual to decide.

Certain sectors of American Evangelicalism seem to be over wrought and wringing their hands concerning "Gender Confusion". As a result, Herculean measures are being taken to heal our generation of this horrid monster of Gender Confusion. Unfortunately, these Herculean measures are only confusing the issue far worse than what it was to begin with because, apparently, American Evangelicals are the most confused on what Womanhood is of any other group on the face of the planet.

Karen, over at "That Mom" discusses some of the mixed and confusing messages coming out of the American Evangelical Gender Confusion Hand Wringing Fest:
http://www.thatmom.com/2012/01/25/purity-balls-christian-princess-syndrome-and-mom-haircuts-evangelicalisms-mixed-messages-for-women/

On a different note, Cindy, over at Under Much Grace, is very concerned about the damage that is being done to all people by many of the excesses going on in American Evangelicalism of which Womanhood Confusion is only one. Cindy is all about healing and being truly set free in Jesus Christ. It is good that Cindy put up:

Finding Healing Through the Twelve Steps: Recovery from the Emotional Wounds of Childhood (and from Spiritual Abuse)

http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2012/01/finding-healing-through-twelve-steps.html

Neither of these ladies are in my blog role yet. Both ladies belong there. Better yet, I'm toying with the idea of making a links page here. I really don't mind being a link junction. I believe in the Wisdom of as Iron sharpens Iron so one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17 NAS).

Beaten Down Men at Driscoll's Church

2012-01-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

I do focus a lot on how bad Drisconian doctrine is for women. It is oppressive and destructive.

But I'm becoming increasingly aware of how bad his misguided doctrine is for men too, on many, many levels. WTH has made me aware of a few things. And now the blog post at this link shows me another side of the devastation that goes on at Mars Hill.

http://matthewpaulturner.net/jesus-needs-new-pr/mark-driscolls-church-discipline-contract-looking-for-true-repentance-at-mars-hill-church-sign-on-the-dotted-line/

http://matthewpaulturner.net/jesus-needs-new-pr/mark-driscolls-gospel-shame-the-truth-about-discipline-excommunication-and-cult-like-control-at-mars-hill/

And here's freebie link. I won't charge you extra for this one at all, even though it's pretty good.

http://www.wadeburleson.org/2012/01/fatal-flaw-within-together-for-gospel.html

Is It Grace Driscoll's Blog or Affair?

2012-01-24T18:38:00.000-08:00

Dear everyone using Google and other search engines to find either Grace Driscoll's blog or juicy gossip on Grace Driscoll's supposed affair...

I apologize that your search has brought you here, because, you see, you will not find anything you are looking for here.

If you are looking for Grace Driscoll's blog, you will be highly disappointed in my blog because my blog is written by a Christian woman who has been there and done that in the Christian community. And what I mean is, I have danced to the tune that men have played for women calling that tune, "The Gospel" when really it has little to do with The True Gospel according to Jesus Christ. I didn't dance to it very long. I found it exhausting and it produced nothing but bondage and heartache.

There is a gender gospel, a false gospel, being pushed by Driscoll, Piper, Dever, Mahaney, Mohler, CBMW and other such groups. It is being pushed hard and strong by modern day pharisees that love the best seats in homes and churches and who want to rule and control and to be able to say that God has given them the divine right to rule over women.

I am no longer subject to the false gospel of hierarchy and shame that these men pushed. But Grace Driscoll is. And if you are also subject to this false teaching, you will absolutely hate what I have to say because I consider it important to expose the gender gospel for what it is. Fake and the commandments of men.

If you are looking for juicy tidbits on Grace's affair, I got nothing. I don't know anything about it, nor do I want to know anything about it if such a thing were even true. That's between her and Mark. Personally, I wouldn't put up with the crap that Mark dishes out. But an affair is never the answer. It just distracts from the real issues in their relationship.

So, anyway, again, so sorry to those of you looking for words of wisdom from Grace's blog or gossip concerning her. You won't find it here. And if you stick around, you will just be frustrated with me.

I wish you well in your search and hope you find what you are looking for.

Mara Reid,

Owner of "From Bitter Waters to Sweet"

A Few British Responses to Driscoll

2012-01-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

http://sarahfegredo.blogspot.com/2012/01/martin-luther-king-and-mark-driscoll.html

http://richardlittledale.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/dear-pastor-mark/

http://thechurchsofa.co.uk/2012/01/dear-markdriscoll/

No, I haven't forgotten how to write my own posts. I've just been busy. Plus, watching more and more people tear up Driscoll gives me hope that his stronghold of manly men idolatry may yet tumble down.

Oh, and this one isn't a British response, but it still needs to be mentioned:

http://pastorjonathanmartin.com/uncategorized/why-mark-driscoll-is-wrong-about-women-in-church-leadership/

Feminization?

2012-01-23T08:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not the only one who sees the trouble with the feminization accusation thrown around by some preachers. He's a couple other gals that don't care for it to much either:

http://moonchild11.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/effeminate-christianity/

http://sarahfegredo.blogspot.com/2012/01/feminisation-of-church.html

Driscoll, a Step Up?

2012-01-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

Well, yeah. to some people. I've been negligent to link my friend Lewis's post on Christian halfway houses for people who come from more legalistic and restrictive Christian movements than Driscoll. Lewis makes some excellent points and I appreciate the fact that he is going after Patriarchy and Quiverfull, yet has a moment to spare to take a jab at Driscoll, Piper, Mahaney, Dever, and SGM.

http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/01/halfway-houses.html

Retha on Purity Balls

2012-01-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

Excellent post by my South African friend and 30 year old virgin, Retha on the deep error and dangers of Purity Balls.

http://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/whats-wrong-with-purity-balls-one-virgins-perspective/

Links to a Couple More Posts on Driscoll

2012-01-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

There is a lot being said and a lot of great insight concerning Driscoll and his position..

http://benirwin.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/shock-jock-pasto-meets-the-full-but-not-so-manly-might-of-the-british-empire/#comment-540

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/the-mark-driscoll-fiasco-what-the-latest-flap-teaches-us-about-the-neo-reformed-movement/

There are also sad stories with the way Driscoll treats other Christians that he disagrees with. If you would like to protest Driscoll, one way is to support a mission work in Haiti that he dumped like a hot potato, because, horror upon horrors, it was a husband and wife team where the wife held equal authority with her husband:

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/01/20/mark-driscoll-acts-29-haiti-relief-denied-because-of-a-woman-preacher/

Song of Solomon as Actual Poetry of the Divine

2012-01-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

The forcing of the Song of Solomon into our modern age of tech manuals, instruction books, text books, and trouble shooting guides by shock jock preachers (like Driscoll) has ripped the beauty and poetic far and away from this poem.

Both Gem/Charis and WTH have recommended this link and I'm going to post it here for two reasons. One, for anyone visiting to look over. And two, for me to be able to find again easily without having to cut and paste.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/01/the-poetry-of-sex

Dear Grace Driscoll...

2012-01-18T16:27:00.000-08:00

My friend Charis used to blog but has moved on. But she said if she were still blogging she would write a letter to Grace Driscoll, wife of Mark Drisoll, because... Well, I think I'll let Charis (who comments here as Gem) speak for herself.

Dear Grace,

I hope and pray for you that you will be able to see things more and more clearly. Perhaps, someday, you will write for us an honest memoir of your journey of recovery of your feminine authority?

Let me introduce myself: I am Charis, the faithful wife of one husband since 1982 and the mother of a quiver full of 8 living children between the ages of 9-27 and from what I have been reading, I’ve been in your shoes:

My husband was a Christian leader- seminary graduate, missionary, Christian college professor. His harshness got him in trouble too! In fact, he is not in full time Christian work anymore.
Any and all marriage problems were MY fault (it’s a lie but due to my own CSA history and all its attendant shame, a lie which I easily swallowed)
My husband exercised control and condemnation over my hairstyle. He thought coloring hair was “deceptive”, but I could not bear being mistaken for “grandma” of my newborn, with the 16 year old taken for his mother.
My husband bullied others, put them down, called them names. One choice put down is to be associated with anything feminine. For example, he has referred to our 9 year old son a “wuz” because he isn’t very athletic….
….only, like your husband with the whole Ted Haggard thing, he denies it because he didn’t “call him a wuz”. He said he was “ACTING like a wuz”. Very like Mark’s “literalistic” denial.
The denial of his damaging words and the re-writing of history became so common in my life as I stopped polishing his ego at every turn and started standing up for myself and the children that I coined a name for it: “the revised self sanctified version”.

Young children, and wives who have been sexually abused in childhood are very easy to control. I see myself in the diminutive, little, “weak willed, easily controlled” woman of 2 Tim 3, arrested in childhood in many respects and ruled by my husband in a very unhealthy way. And, sadly, his behavior and attitude matched some of the other items in the 2 Tim 3 listing.

Times will be changing around the Driscoll household as your children enter their teenage years! Teenagers are not so easy to control. My firstborn, Hannah, went away to a conservative Christian college down south. I remember when she came back for her first Christmas break at age 18 with so many opinions, so outspoken, I thought they had turned her into a “feminist”. Even as I corrected her for “disrespecting her father”, for “questioning authority”, something deep inside me admired that she had such freedom and assertiveness.

Nowadays, Hannah is a married 27 year old who graduates in May with her MD and is in the process of choosing a residency. And I am am a changed woman! I rejoice for her and for all my children that they do not follow in my “submissive” footsteps!

Which brings me to your interpretation of Esther as a “submissive wife”. Please re-think this, Grace. Can you see how Esther was actually a defiant wife? She defied the king’s laws on multiple counts: appearing before him when it was against the law and punishable by death. This act also defied his newest law that “every man should be ruler over his own household” Esther 1:22. Rachel Held Evans has an insightful post and comments on Esther and Vashti: The Real Story and Katherine Bushnell’s 100 year old analysis also addresses it well: The Vashti-Esther Story by Katharine C. Bushnell.

Lastly, I want to question the approach to Song of Solomon your husband takes? My husband, who is recovering from his longtime porn and sexual addiction, has expressed that preaching that holds up Solomon as a role model for marriage is a stumbling block for him. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). Solomon lived in real life what porn addicts live between their ears, was demonstrably incapable of loving a woman well, and is no role model!

My take on Song of Solomon is that there are three characters. Solomon- aware of his own failings in love- made himself the villain of his play, who attempts to seduce the woman away from her shepherd lover. The only use of Shulamite is in 6:13 followed by an uptick in chapter 7 of Solomon’s seductive effort. Though he wanted her for his harem (6:8-9), I believe the pursued woman in the story chose not to yield to the seduction of Solomon and become a “Shulamite” (“Solomon-ite”). Instead, she resisted the seduction and remained faithful to her beloved shepherd. May we do likewise!

You could be a very powerful force for good Grace Driscoll. I have tears in my eyes imagining strongholds falling for many if you are able to recover your spiritual authority as equal co-heir (Gen 1:26-28) and help(ezer) your husband…

Love,

Charis

Voices of Experience

2012-01-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

My long time Internet friend, Kristen commented under my last post.

She said:

"Wow. This brings back so many memories. This is just the way the church leaders acted, in the group I once belonged to.

Sometimes it's hard, when sitting under the preaching of an overwhelming arrogance like this, to see what "stardom Christianity" is really all about. You're dazzled-- because that's what you're meant to be. It's all about a man on a platform, showing off to look good. Sometimes it takes getting burned by it to see it for what it is.

I suspect that's where the young people in this guy's church are right now. Dazzled. But they'll learn. It's sad, but they will."

And I responded:

"Yeah, and it is really hard for those of us to watch what these young people are going through.

You wish that they would listen to you, that they would realize that we aren't speaking against this because we are jealous of Driscoll's popularity or coolness or great communication or teaching ability (puke icon here).

We've see this before. We've been through this kind of train wreck and everything that leads up to it. There is nothing but a horrible end in store for this situation. And we can't stop it.

And neither will we be able to say, "I told you so," on the other side because the spiritual carnage will be so overwhelming.

So we try to do what we can now to get as many as possible to jump off. And so many of them just laugh at us as they barrel on to their doom..."

Perhaps this explains my obsession with this. I can see what is coming and I can't look away just like people couldn't look away from the images from 911 of the towers being struck and collapsing. We see disaster coming. It gets more and more obvious as time moves on. And those who can't see it, those who are still on the train protecting the derelict engineer, they have to work harder to protect the reputation of the engineer and to pretend that all is well and that they are not ignoring the "Bridge out" signs along the way.

It's horrible. And I won't be able to say, "I told you so." All that I will be able to do is to look through the wreckage and search for survivors.

Driscoll Insults a Country

2012-01-16T11:46:00.000-08:00

Open mouth insert foot.

Some people get it when they do it, are sorry for it, apologize, learn from their mistakes, and move on.

Others are ignorant of their foot-in-mouth disease.

Driscoll is ignorant.

Here are only some of the things he said:
http://cognitivediscopants.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/driscoll-brierley-on-women-in-leadership/

And instead of the apology that he owes to British Christians, here is his sorry attempt at damage control:
http://pastormark.tv/2012/01/12/a-blog-for-the-brits

Someone please deliver us from this man and his ego.

Driscoll's Best Critic

2012-01-14T13:57:00.000-08:00

When I find someone else who is better at saying and/or analyzing something than I am, I don't get jealous.

When I saw that Lewis Wells was better and more qualified at speaking out against Patriarchy and the Quiverful movement, all I wanted to do was to direct traffic to his blog so that people could read his words for themselves. His blog is in my blog role and I visit it frequently.

More recently, Wanatchee the Hatchet has come to my attention. He is a far better critic of Driscoll than I could ever be. He has written several post on Driscoll and they just keep getting better. Here is his latest concerning the way Driscoll has sucked the beauty right out of one of the best poems, a poem of poems, in the Bible, the Song of Solomon:

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/01/matthew-lee-anderson-on-real-marriage.html

Poetry has the ability to cause us to transcend our, sometimes, harsh existence.

The opening scene of Anne of Green Gables shows Anne Shirley being entranced by the beauty of a poem. The first time I saw this scene, I though of Anne, "What a fruit cake." But since then, I have been entranced by the beauty of the Song of Solomon not unlike the way Anne was by her poem. This is why it was so difficult to watch a famous, shock jock preacher drag that poem down into the mud and make it base. Here is the scene of Anne reading her poem then being forced to deal with her hard life. You don't need to watch the whole scene to get the effect. It's really only the opening moments that display what I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpLi7duxob0

Talk of Hephzibah House

2012-01-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

My friend, Joe at Incongruous Circumspection is coming to the defense of the abused again.

I just love it when he does that.

http://incongruouscircumspection.blogspot.com/2012/01/tim-dunkins-hephzibah-house-faux-pas.html

I like seeing strong men in action. He and men like Lewis Wells boost my faith in men.

http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/01/when-sycophants-spit-against-wind.html

These are true brothers to their sisters. They are not like this Tim Dunkin who defends the strong by further abusing the already down-trodden.

Infecting Ephesians 5

2012-01-08T05:57:00.000-08:00

Women in Ministry is in my blog roll. It has been for a long time. Cheryl, the blog owner, has been busy a lot, so her blog rests dormant for periods of time. But she still posts from time to time. Whatever Cheryl writes is good. But I particularly like today's blog post, "Ephesians Five Infected with the Mindset of the World."

So, if it has been a while since you've been to Cheryl's blog, or if you have never been over there, today is a good day to go see what she has to offer.

http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2012/01/08/eph-5-infected/

(I have CBMW and Driscoll in my tags because Cheryl touches on them.)

Edited to add another blog post from Wade Burleson. He's not in my blog roll yet, but he should be: http://www.wadeburleson.org/2012/01/new-testament-equality-leads-to-healthy.html)

Driscoll on Marriage

2012-01-06T04:41:00.001-08:00

Yes, I knew this book was coming. No, I was never planning on addressing it here. Why? There is not enough time in my day or patience in my heart for dealing with this kind of insanity.

But I did run across a few blog posts concerning it that I wanted to pass along so that people can be aware of the hubbub.

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/top-of-my-dont-read-list/comment-page-1#comment-621012

http://rachelheldevans.com/mark-driscoll-real-marriage

These I found out about today. And I'm sure there will be many more. I may add them to this post or put them in a new one.

But one of my favorite blog posts on Driscoll's book is and will always be WTH's post.

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/01/review-of-real-marriage-truth-about-sex.html

And as always, WTH's analysis of the big picture concerning Driscoll is always accurate, right on, and entertaining.

I especially like this quote from the following link:

Driscoll fanboys don't realize that Mark basically deserves this kind of backlash. If you're blind and groping forward and people see this they don't hold it against you if you know you're blind. If you claim to see and they can see that you don't see clearly then you stop being an object of sympathy and start being annoying.

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2012/01/mark-driscoll-and-his-fanboys.html

Driscoll used to really get my goat. Now he just annoys the heck out of me. Why? Because he's a loud-mouthed know-it-all who doesn't know one tenth of what he thinks he knows. Why should his book on marriage be any different?

And yet so many find him so hip, with it, and entertaining. They get what they deserve.

Keep after it WTH. Keep cutting through all the noise and focusing in on what is really wrong (and in some cases, right) with this crazy little thing called modern evangelicalism Mark Dristcoll style. May the church out grow this insanity soon. I'm tired of guys like Driscoll turning hearts away from the purity of the gospel.

A Couple of Men Weigh in on Challies

2011-12-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, what women say about Challies is important.

But so is what men say.

Here's a couple good ones:

http://networkedblogs.com/rqtSo

http://www.wadeburleson.org/2011/12/trifling-with-subtleties-while-ignoring.html

Soft, Effeminate Christianity? ROTFLMHO!

2011-12-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

I read this and all I could do was laugh.

The famous Tim Challis, who has caused a stir in the blog world by declaring that women cannot even read scripture out loud in the public assembly has decided to quote Horatius Bonar. In fact, he entitled and entire post "Soft, Effeminate Christianity" in order to quote Bonar. He says this about Bonar's quote that he reprints.

Tim Challies: "Bonar is warning against a kind of soft and, in his word, effeminate Christianity, that may come about when Christians are too afraid to fight for what is right and to protest against what is wrong."

http://www.challies.com/ [found in his December 11, 2011 post]

Why am I laughing at this?

Because of his hypocrisy and blatant hatred of the feminine. These pushers of gender roles force women down into a soft, submissive, subservient role THEN show hatred for such things in the church.

Well, let me tell you Tim Challis, who wants to turn women into little helpless lambs. Let me tell you this. You and your cohorts' relentless pursuit to dis-empower and bring into bondage, women, half or over half of the body of Christ... This pursuit is blowing up in you face.

More and more women are done with all the rules men keep making up for them.

I'll give you a few examples:

http://www.emergingmummy.com/2011/12/in-which-i-am-done-fighting-for-seat-at.html

http://rachelheldevans.com/daughters-will-prophesy

http://www.elizabethesther.com/2011/12/i-will-prophesy.html

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/11/04/tim-challies-deleting-both-scripture-and-hurting-people-a-request-from-sgm-refuge/

http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/industry-standards/

These are mother grizzlies and lionesses who are not afraid to fight for what is right and to protest against what is wrong. And your stance on women reading scripture in the public assembly and your support of C.J Mahaney are both dead wrong. These women are not afraid to declare it. They are very feminine. But they are strong and powerful, able to preach and teach men of their wrong. And yes, they are able to prophesy in the name of Jesus. No amount of Scripture twisting by you and others is able to take away from them the promise of Almighty God.

The real problem in all of this is your refusal to hear about the wrong that you commit against all of your sisters and many of your brothers.

The Book of Eli

2011-11-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

While I was writing my, "Only for those who are not completely bored with..." post, I thought about linking this movie.

My son and I watch post-apocalyptic movies, and one we watched within the last year was, "The Book of Eli".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Eli

I probably liked this movie more than it was worth. But how could I help it. I enjoy the acting skill of Denzel Washington, and it covered a topic that I called one of my passions in my previous posts.

About all the Bible had been destroyed in this post-apocalyptic culture. And the villain of this movie was on the hunt to find any remaining copies of this book in order to use it to control and manipulate people. He wanted to use it to increase his power on the earth.

A true villain, indeed.

He is, of course, thwarted by our hero, Eli, well portrayed by Washington.
Hence, I like this movie because the good guys win and the Bible isn't misused by those who are corrupt.

So, anyway, if you haven't seen it, don't mind the grittiness and violence of post-apocalyptic films, and like seeing those who want to misuse the Bible thwarted, you might give this movie a once over.

Only for those who are not completely bored with...

2011-11-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

...talking about Driscoll.

I understand that my obsession with Driscoll is not shared with most of my readers. Why the heck am I so obsessed? Well, speculating, I think it has to do with two passions of mine. And when you have two passions at work, it's hard to deny it.

Passion number one is my frustration concerning those who turn the Bible into a book for controlling others. Many branches of, so-called, Christianity do that. Driscoll does it. But he's not the worst at it, by any means.

Passion number two is my love of the book of poetry in the Bible called "The Song of Songs" or "The Song of Solomon". I love this book because of all the beauty and uplifting of the feminine contained within it's chapters.

My frustration with Driscoll, as you already know, is with how he has taken this uplifting book, stripped away all the uplifting, healing, and encouraging parts and turned it into a sex manuel to make sure that he and the men in his church get enough sex. In the past, he has even gone so far as to make claims that certains verses are commands from Jesus Christ himself, concerning what a Christian wife owes her husband in the bedroom.

So yeah, that really ticked me off.
And yeah, I'm sure I spend far to much time here on this little side issue.

Anyway, for the one, or two of my readers who don't mind following me down the road of my little Driscoll rants and comments, I have a link. Those who are bored with my rantings on Driscoll, don't bother following it. It is to WenatcheeTheHatchet's postscript on his guest series that appeared both here and The Wartburg Watch. It is interesting to those of us who are concerned with the influence of one of the most influential pastors in the U.S. I made a couple comments under his post:

http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2011/11/lengthy-postscript-to-wartburg-watch.html

Conversation on Driscoll and SoS

2011-11-16T06:49:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to link this for two reasons.

It is a repeat of what Wenatchee guest posted here.
Anyone who checks out my blog roll would find it anyway.

But the conversations under these posts are interesting and I thought I should alert anyone who might be interested in the exchanges in the comment sections.

Here is what they have so far--
What hasn't been posted here:
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/11/11/an-insiders-perspective-on-mark-driscoll-and-the-song-of-songs-hallelujah/

And part of what has already been posted here:
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/11/14/alternatives-to-mark-driscolls-pornogrification-of-the-song-of-songs/

Sorry. MIA Again

2011-11-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

My husband and I got some terrible news last week.
A man we both loved and respected committed suicide.
I could go on and on about how exceptional and wonderful this man is and about the hundreds and hundreds of people that attended his funeral, and might still do it in a later post. But instead, let me just say that I will miss him terribly and wish to God that he were still with us. In so many ways, he reflected all that is good and right in a human being. And I have to stop right now because I'll start blathering if I don't.
I keep his family in my prayers.

Addressing Misogyny In SOS Chapter One

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

I bet you didn't know that Song of Solomon Addressed Misogyny. Actually, it really only gives a picture of it as anger of brothers against a sister, the Beloved, and the Chorus's and/or Lovers drawing her away from it to a safe place.

First, the verses where the Beloved admits the anger of her brothers and their ganging up on her and oppressing her, making her their servant rather than their sibling or equal.

Songs 1:5 “I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon. 6 “Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, For the sun has burned me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard."

Her brothers are not treating this nobleman's daughter (SOS 7:1) as a fellow heir but as something less than themselves, a servant or slave, someone for them to lord over. Though she had her own inheritance, her own vineyard, she's not allowed take care of it. She is persuaded or coerced or forced, by her brothers, to take care of their vineyard, their vision, their calling. Her brothers do not allow her to own her own vision/vineyard. She's not allowed to develop her own talents or take care of her own business. And she's been burned by their harsh treatment.
What follows in chapter one, is the healing and protecting powers of the king working toward the beloved because those who should have been looking out for her well being were too busy taking advantage of her and stealing from her.
Her brothers are referred as her mother's sons. They can be symbolic of anyone who is abusive towards us within or without the church.

Poetry Threads.

2011-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

[Edited to remove very long link. It was shutting down the blog.]

This very long link leads to a google image of a braid.
I picked this particular image due to the colors of the individual strands or threads.

One problem with the way modern, western civilization read the Bible is that they look upon it as an owner's manual or instruction manual. You can see this in their application of Ephesians 5 toward marriage and you can see it in Driscoll's application of the Song of Solomon.

I've got news for people. Poetry is so far removed from instruction manual material it is laughable. When the Bible was written, no one ever heard of an owner's or instruction manual. They didn't think in those terms. We think in those terms because we live in an age of technology and having to know how things work in order to get by.

But even in our modern age, do we feel the need to look at modern poetry as instructions for life? Why this compulsion to make Biblical poetry into such a thing.

What is poetry? It is many things, some of which are hard to pin down. One reason for this is that poetry can have many threads making up the whole. And the threads are woven together. Modern writers do this in both fiction and poetry. Why is it so difficult for some blockheads to see this?

WTH: "I have been convinced for years that Driscoll has the world's biggest tin ear for poetry. He doesn't think in poetic terms but in terms of propositional statements and formal arguments. This isn't just manifest in his approach to Song of Songs, it's also revealed perhaps even more tellingly in the fact that in fifteen years he's never done any substantial preaching from the Psalms. He did some okay work in the 2004 Advent series going through the songs in Luke but that was obviously more than half a decade ago." From a comment under his part 4b post.

I've complained in the past that the Songs have been mishandled by perverted men. I appreciate further understanding that another mishandling is by men who have no grasp or understanding where poetry is concerned. Men who try to shove poetry into an instruction manual mode have no business handling the poetry at all. They destroy and crush rather than teach and open understanding.

Song of Solomon is not a single thread of erotic and explicit, sexual instruction. Making it into it does violence to the text.
Rather it is a many layered poem with many threads, probably more than three, woven through out.
One of those threads is sexual.
Another of those threads is allegorical or typological.
Another thread is on healing.
Another thread is raising up of the downtrodden
Another thread is empowering the feminine against the anger of misogyny among men (supposed brothers).

There is much woven into this poem. It can be many things to many people. It can meet a point of need within a person's life. It can help with marriage. It can help with our relationship with the Almighty.

Smacking it down into one-size-fits-all is thievery and a great injustice. Glimpses of eternity can be found in it. Forcing it into a finite box is done by fools who rush in where angels fear to tread.

First and Last Overview of Song of Solomon

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

[This is a repost from 2009 for those who joined us after that time]

One of the reasons I see healing in Song of Solomon is through reading about the Beloved in the first and last chapters.

In chapter one it says:
Song of Songs 1:5 I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon.
Vs 6 Do not stare at me because I am swarthy (dark), For the sun had burned me. My mother's sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyard, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.

Above she confesses that she has been pushed into the position of a common laborer by her brothers who were angry with her. She worked for them because they made her do it. And they oppressed her to the point that she neglected her own property, her own vineyard.Elsewhere in SOS, the Beloved is referred to as a nobleman's daughter, so it is curious that she was forced to work as a servant by her brothers in the first chapter.

Now let's look at a couple of verses in the last chapter of SOS.
Song of Songs 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to caretakers; Each one was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.
Vs 12 My very own vineyard is at my disposal; The thousand shekels are for you, Solomon, And two hundred are for those who take care of its fruit.

I read a commentary somewhere that said that the Beloved's vineyard was her face/appearance.
That she couldn't take care of her looks and became sunburned. I disagree with this since the last chapter also mentions her vineyard and the money she has made from it. So unless they had super models back then, thinking of the vineyard as being her face and her making money off of it... This might imply she was a prostitute, which we know is not true. So she must have really had a vineyard, like the Proverbs woman did.

But the difference in chapter eight is that she no longer talks about the oppression of her brothers or her sunburn. The Lover (whom she is married to at this point) has his vineyard but
does not require the Beloved to work in it. He has hired men for that.

The Beloved is now in charge of her own vineyard rather than being forced to neglect it. In fact, she doesn't work in her own vineyard but also has hired men that she pays to work in it just like her Beloved, Solomon. No longer oppressed, she is in the position to be generous with her Lover. And out of gratitude or love she willingly hands over money made off her vineyard to him.

Quite a change from chapter one to chapter eight. The Beloved has been raised from an oppressed servant to manager of her own affairs. From my reading, the progression from
chapter one through chapter eight, is a progression of healing and being raised
up from a lowly place to an exalted place by the love, care, and generosity of
the Lover.

And this, my friends, is why I hold that Song of Solomon is not just about... uhm... sex. It is about healing and is an allegory or picture of God's love, care, and generosity toward the church and
individuals in the church, working to raise them from the muck and mire of
worldly darkness and into His marvelous light.

This also goes directly against the assertion by Mark Driscoll that the Song of Solomon is not a progression and not in chronological order, an assertion that he makes as though it were fact though he gives no support whatsoever. And there are reasons that he makes this assertion. Because if Song of Solomon were a progression, then his teaching would have the Lover and Beloved engaging in fornication, sex outside marriage.

But enough on that. The point of this post was a first and last overview, where the Beloved started and where she ended up after just eight chapters of being showered with unbridled love and affection from the Lover of her soul.

Driscoll's Error Is a Thief

2011-10-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

The Bible says that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.
It also says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.

Part of me wants to accuse Driscoll of being a thief for stealing away the spiritually healing and empowering qualities of Song of Solomon.

But after reading WTH's assessment of Driscoll and seeing how important the marriage healing side of Song of Songs is to him, I have to back off and refrain from calling Driscoll, himself, a thief.

But his Peasant Princess series on the Song of Solomon and the error contained in it, this error is most certainly a thief.

There is healing and refreshing for the soul and spirit of the downtrodden in the Songs. There is also tenderness and a way of closeness to God, unparalleled anywhere else in the Bible. There is also the lifting up of the feminine from a low place from the muck and mire of this fallen world up to a high place of strength, maturity, and authority. I know it's there. I found it. It is a strong thread completely overlooked by Driscoll who is too busy looking for erotic, explicit sex under every rock and tree so his libido can be ever serviced.

The beauty and depth in Song of Solomon and the opening up of understanding of the Infinite is not something that should be brushed away lightly. Driscoll does the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, a great disservice when he mishandles the Songs as he does.

The healing, lifting up, and empowering of the Beloved by the Lover is a strong theme that shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of Aphrodite and Eros. But I digress.

By now, any readers here will understand my concern over the thievery of Driscoll's doctrine. But with all my talk about him and the Songs, some of you may be wonder what sort of healing, empowering, and drawing near to God I'm thinking of. So I feel it would be good to repost some of my earlier writings on the Songs so that you may begin to see why the thievery and armed robbery of Driscoll's error bothers me so much.

Love Without Restraint

2011-10-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

By now the massive audio library of sermons at Mars Hill church demonstrates that Driscoll has absolutely not problem at all invoking the biblical metaphor of husband and wife when it deals with the ancient near-Eastern AUTHORITY STRUCTURE within marriage. He can accept the part where the Groom dies for the Bride. He can accept the part, certainly, where the Bride must submit to the Groom, not least in his various teachings of male headship and the authority of church leaders. He's got problems if that conjugal metaphor ever breaks the bonds of propriety, service, and obligation to take on an element of ecstatic, self-forgetting admiration for the other. Driscoll may think he's secured himself from imagining a Jesus who wants to sexually penetrate him, but he may have done so at the expense of allowing the canonical compreshensivesness of the conjugal metaphor to have it's spirit-inspired way. Christ choosing to die for the Bride on the Cross expresses a love that has no sense of discretion or restraint. The love of Christ for the Church was so strong He embraced the Cross, scorning its shame, and He conquered death by death because of His love for us.

In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of the death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ's love is stronger than death.

By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotica love but shudders as the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us.
WTH first three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's part 4b
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html

The problem with much teaching on marriage and gender is the hyper-focus on structure and roles. All problems can be solved by men and women playing their parts perfectly, Men leading as they are supposed to (even though the Bible never instructs them to do so) and Women submitting as defined by the teachers who over-focus on such structure.

As a pastor's wife counseling married couples, I kept running into, "Well if she would just submit to me likes she's supposed to then everything would be fine," and less often "Well, if he would just love me like he's supposed to all would be well" (and her definition of love rarely reflected what the Bible said.)

With all the obsession with what the other was doing and supposed to be doing and the obsession I saw among teachers to teach the roles according to Paul, I saw that the most important element was being left out. The bedrock of the Words of Jesus Christ.

I began to wonder if we needed to focus on what Jesus said about authority and love rather than what Paul said. And I began to wonder if we were over emphasising Paul's words in Ephesians 5 at the expense of Paul's definition of love in I Corinthians 13 and at the expense of pretty much everything John said in his epistles.

The structure of the relationships, the roles, the positions have taken up more importance than what Jesus came to do. And the power of the Love of Jesus has been lost in a limited and deeply impared understanding of the function of that Love.

Driscoll is all about authority and submission in marriage and in our relationship with Jesus. He's also all about wild-and-crazy, inhibitions-thrown-off sex in the bedroom. But he cannot grasp the even more powerful, limitless love of Jesus. A love more powerful than death and that is even able to conquer death. It's not about structure, authority, or roles. It is about Jesus throwing off all restraint, stepping down from His position (or role, if you will) to give all. On the Cross Jesus demonstrates for us this love without restraint, that love that is more powerful than death. It is a love that is not structured or limited to a role. It is infinitely beyond that. It is hard to grasp. And it will never be understood when the starting and ending points are shoved down into a box, the man-made structures, imposed upon it by Driscoll and others like him.

Song of Solomon, when seen as a type of the love of God for us, opens limits and displays infinity to the finite in ways that flawed and limiting human structures cannot touch.

God Speaking Tenderly?

2011-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

There is no present-tense expression in any age of the Church this side of Christ's Second Coming in which unreserved adoration and praise for God's people is given. Jesus is the Groom who rebukes and cajoles His bride for Her continual failures and worldliness thus it is unsurprising that a man like Driscoll, in rejecting Song of Songs, can never ultimately have a vision of Christ's people that can exult in Her. It is only in Song of Songs where a husband and wife are shown speaking to each other with unbridled affection. It is only in Song of Songs where there is any "now" to the beauty of a marriage filled with mutual affection and by extension the marital metaphor for God and His people that Driscoll feels compelled to reject.

Thus a pastor like Driscoll only knows how to speak to the betrothed Bride as someone who isn't worthy of the Groom. She'd better clean up, get her act together and stop being so bad because her sins are bad enough that Jesus had to die for them... but it's not quite clear that Driscoll knows how to articulate the depth of the Bridegroom's love for the waiting Bride. Driscoll could preach for years on Hosea and mention the promise God makes to speak tenderly and winsomely to the wayward Bride. But where could we turn in the scriptures to see HOW God might speak in such a winsome and tender way to such a Bride.

Well, obviously NOT in Song of Songs as Driscoll expounds it because in it he sees only wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs. Driscoll's understanding of how a pastor should speak to the Bride is as a Hosea or an Elijah telling Israel she's a whore or an apostle telling the Corinthians they should be ashamed of themselves. In other words, at the risk of stretching the metaphors a bit, Driscoll is fine with the Hosea who says God "will" speak tenderly to His people but can't accept that Song of Songs could be where God DOES speak tenderly to the Bride of His people.
--WTH last three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4a
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4a.html

I hear a lot of reasons why people are falling away from the church. The Wartburg Watch has a post on why young people are turning away. Certain sectors of Christianity are worried about men not going to church and are blaming women and the feminization of Church and society.

But I have noted that many women are falling away because God has been presented in a, never-satisfied, hard-hearted, male-favoring light. God has been presented as a grumpy patriarch with no tenderness and little to no concern over the things that might concern women. God has been presented as one who is only concerned about women preforming their role of wife and mother and not even wanting to speak to women except through their husbands, fathers, and in some cases, even their sons.

I know women who are falling away from the church because of this presentation of God. Preachers and patriarchs in these circles are far more concerned with keeping control over their women and making sure their women are meeting the human standards that are set up than with the need of the woman for tenderness.

I know for myself, learning of this tenderness of God that exists but not mentioned much has greatly enhanced my relationship with God and has healed the hurt places. I had found it other place in the Bible.

Zephaniah 3:17“The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!

Matthew11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

They are like hidden treasures where God expresses joy over us, or desire to gather us to Him or refers to Himself as gentle and humble. But even in these places, they are short at best, and as in the Luke 13 passage, it is mixed with sorrow over their sin.

But in Song of Solomon, it is concentrated, mutual adoration, a place where tenderness abounds.
It's not, "I love you, but you fall short, are sinful, etc." It is just, "I love you, no buts!"
No buts, no shaming, no pointing to flaws.

Actually, a couple of places in the Songs the bride points to her own flaws but the Bridegroom is right there to build her up and hold her close.

Off Topic, Viking Break

2011-10-14T07:12:00.001-07:00

I still have a few comments on Wenatchee's guest post on Driscoll.
But going into the weekend, I thought I'd share a clip on Vikings.
I think it is up on Bing for two reasons.
The movie "Avengers" has Thor in it who was a Viking deity.
And apparently, because of the movie, some people are dressing up as Vikings for Halloween.
Those who have been with me know that my heritage is Danish and I like a few of the things that have been passed down to me. A few other things, not so much.

But one thing I'm proud of is number seven on their count down of things you didn't know about Vikings which is...

#7 Viking women were the most respected of their time. They could even pick and divorce their own husbands.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-vikings/ufa4m63e?q=diagonal+video&rel=msn&from=en-us_msnhp&form=MSNRLL

So, anyway, going into the weekend, I thought I'd share something a little off-topic

Love Affair With Doctrine

2011-10-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

As he put it in his book Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Driscoll was very unhappy with his marriage and particularly the state of his sex life at that point in his life. He thought he'd go through Song of Songs and see if it could improve his marriage. He went into the book with an agenda that colored his approach. Now, it seems, Driscoll can't disengage from his love affair with Song of Songs as the canonized sex manual that fixed what he wasn't happy with in his marriage. Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotica toward Song on songs is such a treasure to him he can't see that what is has done to his view of a biblical book is transform that book's message within the canon. Instead of "It's all about Jesus!" it must now be "It CAN'T BE about Jesus."
--WTH, from the last paragraph in his guest post here, on Monday 10/10/11
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html

As Christians, we put our trust in a lot of things besides Jesus.
I'm guilty just like everyone else. WTH's observation on Driscoll here can actually be seen all over. We are a fallen people in need of saving. Our marriages need saved, our relationships, certain aspects of our culture, etc.

But the problem is, if something works for you, or helps you, you can raise that solution above where it belongs.

I can see this concern that WTH has toward Driscoll and apply it to myself.
Song of Songs has been such a tremendous blessing to me, spiritually and in my perception of the Love of God for me, that I could fall into the trap of elevating my take on the Songs above everything else even to the point of asserting that my take is the only take on the Songs. And anyone else who disagrees with me is wrong or even evil.

I try not to do this.
In my dealings with my disgust over Mark Driscoll's position, I've still tried to continue to make room for other positions. If counselors have had success using the Songs in marriage counselling, then far be it for me to pronounce judgement on them for not looking at the Songs as I do.

Also, I can now see why it is so important for Driscoll to teach the Songs the way he does. He feels it saved or enhanced his marriage and he wants others to benefit from it. I cannot fault the man for feeling this way.

But at the same time, I am very glad that my husband doesn't have the 'revelation' of the Songs that Driscoll has. Whereas Driscoll intent may have been noble, he has trampled over boundaries of decency in his zeal. He has rushed into the book, looking for and finding erotic sex under every rock and tree and pretty much every verse of the book, including those that have nothing to do with sex. Thus, he has turned the entire book into erotica leaving no room for anyone who may have benefited from a more allegorical or typological reading of the Songs. People like me.

So, whereas I don't want to rob those who have benefited from the marriage counseling use of the Songs, Mark Driscoll tries to declare my take on it as a lie and steals away from the church whatever benefit that my take has to offer.

God forgive him, he knows not what he does.

WTH on Driscoll's SOS, Intro & pt 1

2011-10-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

[Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's Song of Songs series, Intro & Part One]

Mark Driscoll has been a polarizing figure for years and if the sound bites associated with him any given year are any indication he plans to be a lightning rod in American Christianity for as long as he can. Though there are number of topics about which he has chosen to say controversial things that he says are simply statements in the Bible, he has become most famous for his remarks on sex and gender.

I intend to summarize a few observations about what Driscoll has said about Song of Songs. Though Driscoll presents himself as just preaching what is in the Bible Christians have questioned the viability and propriety of Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. In the last few years there have been two objections. The first is that Driscoll's approach to Song of Songs is so explicit as to turn Song of Songs into a kind of Christian porn. The most famous exponent of this first objection is John MacArthur who, in "The Rape of Solomon's Song" accuses Driscoll of transforming a biblical text into Christian pornography. The second objection is that by being deliberately cavalier about allegorical typological interpretations of Song of Songs Driscoll is choosing to ignore a venerable interpretive tradition within the Christian faith.

Here I intend to demonstrate that while both objections have their merits there is a third objection to make to Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs. The problem in Driscoll's handling of Song of Songs does not reside in his emphasis on marital love; it also does not reside, strictly speaking, in his refusal to concede a metaphor in Song of Songs for God loving His people. The problem resides in Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotic at the expense of both the perspicuity of scripture and of Jesus' own words about His fulfillment of Scripture. This can be broken down into four issues:

1. Driscoll's rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs forces him to reject the words of Christ about scripture regarding Himself.

2. This rejection also compels him to reject the Bridegroom/Bride metaphor only for Song of Songs while affirming it in every other genre.

3. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs transforms the book into a type of Christian porn that has no teaching value for the unmarried, for the widow, or for a child. In Driscoll's hands Song of Songs is no longer a gift given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the whole church and instead becomes a sex manual of special value to the married.

4. This rejection of Christ typology in Song of Songs of necessity rejects the one place in the Scripture besides the eschatological Wedding Feast of the Lamb in which the marriage between God and His people could be presented in a positive light.

ISSUE ONE: MARK DRISCOLL VS THE WORDS OF CHRIST ABOUT SCRIPTURE

The first and most difficult issue is that if the Song of Songs cannot in any way refer to Christ then Driscoll must account for Jesus' words in John 5:39-47. Jesus declared that the scriptures pointed to Him. In Luke 24:25-27 Jesus is described as explaining the things concerning Himself in Moses and all the prophets and in all the Scriptures. Now if Luke and John testify that Christ said the Scriptures pointed to Him before His death and explained to disciples after resurrection how the Scriptures pointed to Him, then the only way Song of Songs could be omitted from these two statements by Christ about Himself and the Scriptures is if Song of Songs ISN'T SCRIPTURE.

Driscoll can't resort to such a claim because he affirms Song of Songs is canonical. After all, he wouldn't preach the book if it weren't in the Bible. He even mentions in his preaching about the book that Song of Songs has been read at Passover so one could make the case that the association of Song of Songs with Passover even predates Christ Himself. Driscoll, generally, has been eager to say that all Scripture properly understood points to Jesus. As Driscoll is so fond of saying, "It's all about Jesus!"

Except for Song of Songs, which has to be about wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs and date nights. In fact Driscoll has joked that if the Groom in Song of Songs is actually Jesus then Jesus is doing things to him (Driscoll) that make him feel uncomfortable. Driscoll has so sexualized the content of Song of Songs in his personal handling of the text he actually CAN'T let himself see the book as a testament to Christ. If this is so then Driscoll testifies against himself about whether or not he believes all Scripture is ultimately all about Jesus.

WTH on Driscoll's SOS, parts 2 & 3

2011-10-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

(Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's series on Song of Songs, Parts Two and Three]

ISSUE TWO: DRISCOLL VS THE PERSPECUITY OF SCRIPTURE AND CANONICAL METAPHOR

Driscoll notes in his first sermon in the Peasant Princess series that Song of Songs is traditionally read during Passover, and that excerpts of the Song of Songs are sung in public settings. This, he would have us believe, shows that Jews are not as squeamish about sex as many Christians historically have been. Driscoll grants that there are some spots where there can kinda sorta be some typological things about Jesus and the Church in Song of Songs but that this is not primarily what the text is about.

But if the Song of Songs isn't about God's love for His people why on earth has it been read as part of Passover celebration? The whole point of Passover is to celebrate and remember how Yahweh delivered Israel out of bondage in Egypt through His servant Moses, and the Passover is the highest feast day in the Mosaic covenantal community. Does Driscoll just expect all Christians everywhere to NEVER connect the dots here? Throughout the prophetic literature Israel is described as a bride who has become wayward. Driscoll can accept that metaphor because it's in the Bible. If the Bible says God views Himself as a husband and His people as His wife that's in the Bible. We better stick with it.

All right then, when, exactly, did this courtship and betrothal of Yahweh to Israel happen? The whole of the Prophets and the Wisdom literature (i.e. Psalms, Job, Proverb, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) seem to suggest that the beginning of God's relationship to the nation of Israel had to begin with the Exodus and the time in the wilderness. In other words, the exodus and the encounter with Yahweh through which the covenant was given constitute the beginning of the marriage. If Song of Songs were merely a celebration of married life it would have no plausible role in the corporate worship of Israel, still less as part of its most sacred celebration. It makes far more sense to understand Song of Songs as a poetic reflection not merely on a generic marriage or a specific human marriage but also as a reflection on the marriage of Yahweh and Israel as His people. If that's NOT why it is integrated into Passover than Driscoll has to assure us that all the rabbis and all the people who observed Passover even before the coming of Christ were just horndogs who took time off from revering Yahweh to consider wifely stripteases.

Curiously (or not!) the Puritans had no problem affirming the allegorical element of Song of Songs. They had no trouble at all affirming the book as describing the love of God for His people. Jonathan Edwards, Richard Sibbes, William Gurnall and other Puritans (whom Driscoll claims to admire) happily affirmed the value of Song of Songs as a meditation on God's love for His people. Now, to be sure, there are allegorical interpretations of Song of Songs that have peculiarities. To suggest that the woman's breasts represent Moses and Aaron is stretching things quite a bit. But if allegorical interpretations err in transforming the breasts of the woman into Moses and Aaron, Driscoll errs in his resolve to insist that Song of Songs 2:3 has to refer to oral sex.

ISSUE THREE: DRISCOLL VS A SCRIPTURE WHICH IS TRULY GIVEN TO ALL BELIEVERS

Driscoll has happily justified teaching on Song of Songs by citing 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and suitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be fit, equipped for every good work." On this rationale Driscoll spent 11 weeks discussing Song of Songs and the nature of marriage, with a few occasional remarks about how singles should be sexually pure in their singleness.

Yet how does Driscoll's interpretive gloss on Song of Songs 2:3 constitute the use of Scripture to equip all the saints so as to be fit for every good work? Is this the interpretation of Song of Songs 2:3 that Driscoll will present to his daughter Ashley? If all Scripture is divinely inspired and given to us as a gift through the Holy Spirit then the Scriptures are a gift that should be of benefit to every believer in some way. I don't see how Mark Driscoll's daughter Ashley is likely to benefit from knowing that some day, if she gets married, she can give her husband oral sex because "Papa Daddy" says that Song of Songs 2:3 says she can totally go for that. I don't precisely see how Driscoll's son "Buddy Zach" has any reason to study Song of Songs now if Song of Songs 7:2 can only be interpreted as the husband admiring his wife's genitals. Prepubescent children have no need to have the Song of Songs mentioned to them if in Driscoll's hermeneutic the only role book has is as sanctified erotica.

Christians have affirmed for millennia that the Scriptures are a gift given to all the saints to tell us about Christ and that all the scriptures, properly understood, can be read in this way. Yet Driscoll's interpretive approach toward Song of Songs not only makes it a problematic book to discuss with children, it also transforms the book into a rhapsodic account of sexual techniques and positions that not all Christians participate in even within marriage, and which, expounded at any length, present unmarried Christians with a host of potentially new temptations.

When a person explicitly rejects an allegorical reading of Song of Songs in favor of techniques and positions this can be construed as a hermeneutic of erotica or pornography. Driscoll used to advise that a Polaroid of the wife as a Bible bookmark was a great idea so long as nobody else read that Bible. Driscoll’s handling of Song of Songs reveals a peculiar contradiction between his formally stated view that all scriptures points to Christ while denying allegorical or typological elements pointing to Christ in Song of Songs because of his commitment to a strict hermeneutic of erotica toward the book. The case that Driscoll has pornified Song of Songs derives from Driscoll’s own contradictory hermeneutic toward Song of Songs in contrast to other biblical texts and not from any simplistic accusation that Driscoll encourages people to go expose themselves to porn.

WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4a

2011-10-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

[Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's series on Song of Solomon, Part Four A]

ISSUE FOUR: DRISCOLL'S SELECTIVE APPLICATION OF THE BRIDE METAPHOR AND PASTORAL CONSEQUENCE

Driscoll readily grants the husband/wife metaphor everywhere ELSE in Scripture. He preached from Ephesians and Revelation and readily identified the husband/wife metaphor there. Yet Driscoll rejects the Groom/Bride metaphor in Song of Songs for the simple reason that if he accepts an allegorical or typological elements then he suspects Song of Songs promotes a weirdly homoerotic relationship between himself and Jesus. But Driscoll must surely know that Jesus Himself said that in the age to come no one will be given in marriage. Driscoll's jokes that Jesus might be having gay sex with him in Heaven if Song of Songs is an allegory about God's love for His people is simply a specious case of wanting to have things both ways. He literalizes a metaphor for the sake of illustrating why he rejects the metaphor. He never adequately addresses what the canon-wide basis for the metaphorical understanding would be. In fact, he affirms the metaphor in all other biblical literature, which makes his refusal to accept its application in the Wisdom literature even stranger. Where Puritans like Jonathan Edwards or Richard Sibbes or William Gurnall comfortably went Driscoll dare not go, apparently.

The metaphor of husband and wife in the Scriptures consistently reveals the marriage to be in a continual state of crisis. No sooner has Yahweh betrothed Himself to Israel in the wilderness than they create a golden calf. God appoints judges who turn Israel to idolatry. God grants a king and kings turn Israel away and become pioneers in idolatry. God sends prophets and the prophets are not heeded. Hosea and the other prophets take up the husband/bride metaphor to exclaim that Israel is a whoring wayward wife. Driscoll will never reject this metaphor.

Anyone who has ever attended a Mars Hill Church Good Friday service will see that the dominant theme is to reflect upon how our sins put Jesus on the Cross. Christ gave Himself up to death for the sake of His Bride, the Church. Mars Hill has emphasized this and it is part of the story. Yet it is not the whole story. That the Bride has been a wayward, sinful whore whose sin is so great it required Christ’s death is just half of Jesus’ heart toward His Bride. Driscoll's pastoral and poetic imagination falters at the point where hymnody often begins.

What wondrous love is this, o my soul, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul ...

Driscoll’s been unable to consistently articulate that Christ, in love, chose to bear the Cross for us and share death with us to reconcile us to Him. He has, however, been adept at going on at some length about the dreadful curse.

It is unsurprising that Driscoll confessed in early 2008 that he had been told by C. J. Mahaney and John Piper that he has failed to articulate the love of God for His people. This is not surprising. Let is consider the nature of the husband/bride metaphor in all of Scripture if it must be excised from the Song of Songs. Throughout the Law and the Prophets the husband/bride metaphor is used is in a setting where God’s people have to be rebuked for being disobedient to God in some way. In the Torah Israel is going to face the reality of apostasy and exile. She is already unfaithful and will remain unfaithful until disaster, rejection, and exile. In the prophets Israel is told she is a wayward, whoring wife. In the wisdom literature we get shown that if we do the right things we’ll avoid the wayward women.

In the New Testament Christ dies for the Church but the apostles, after going through what may be dubbed the honeymoon of Acts, pass through that honeymoon into the exasperating world of having to write epistles to real churches with real sins. A new Exodus has led to a new age of wandering through the wilderness of Sin until the Land of Promise is reached. Only now we do not go rushing to meet the Promise, the Promise will come to us. Yet even though in the book of Revelation we are told of the promised Wedding Feast of the Lamb, when the Church will be the spotless Bride of Christ, this is not who we are. Revelation opens with seven letters of reproof to the churches in Asia given to John the Revelator by Christ.

There is no present-tense expression in any age of the Church this side of Christ's Second Coming in which unreserved adoration and praise for God's people is given. Jesus is the Groom who rebukes and cajoles His bride for Her continual failures and worldliness and thus it is unsurprising that a man like Driscoll, in rejecting Song of Songs, can never ultimately have a vision of Christ's people that can exult in Her. It is only in Song of Songs where a husband and wife are shown speaking to each other with unbridled affection. It is only in Song of Songs where there is any "now" to the beauty of a marriage filled with mutual affection and by extension the marital metaphor for God and His people that Driscoll feels compelled to reject.

Thus a pastor like Driscoll only knows how to speak to the betrothed Bride as someone who isn’t worthy of the Groom. She’d better clean up, get her act together, and stop being so bad because her sins are bad enough that Jesus had to die for them … but it’s not quite clear Driscoll knows how to articulate the depth of the Bridegroom's love for the waiting Bride. Driscoll could preach for years on Hosea and mention the promise God makes to speak tenderly and winsomely to the wayward Bride. But where could we turn in the scriptures to see HOW God might speak in such a winsome and tender way to such a Bride?

Well, obviously NOT in Song of Songs as Driscoll expounds it because in it he sees only wifely stripteases and holy blowjobs. Driscoll’s understanding of how a pastor should speak to the Bride is as a Hosea or an Elijah telling Israel she’s a whore. Or an apostle telling the Corinthians they should be ashamed of themselves. In other words, at the risk of stretching the metaphors a bit, Driscoll is fine with the Hosea who says God “will” speak tenderly to His people but can’t accept that Song of Songs could be where God DOES speak tenderly to the Bride of His people.

WTH on Driscoll's SOS part 4b

2011-10-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

[Guest post by Wenatchee The Hatchet concerning Mark Driscoll's series on Song of Songs, Part Four B]

By now the massive audio library of sermons at Mars Hill Church demonstrates that Driscoll has absolutely no problem at all invoking the biblical metaphor of husband and wife when it deals with the ancient near-Eastern AUTHORITY STRUCTURE within marriage. He can accept the part where the Groom dies for the Bride. He can accept the part, certainly, where the Bride must submit to the Groom, not least in his various teachings on male headship and the authority of church leaders. He’s got problems if that conjugal metaphor ever breaks the bonds of propriety, service, and obligation to take on an element of ecstatic, self-forgetting admiration for the other. Driscoll may think he's secured himself from imagining a Jesus who wants to sexually penetrate him, but he may have done so at the expense of allowing the canonical comprehensiveness of the conjugal metaphor to have it's Spirit-inspired way. Christ choosing to die for the Bride on the Cross expresses a love that has no sense of discretion or restraint. The love of Christ for the Church was so strong he embraced the Cross, scorning its shame, and He conquered death by death because of His love for us.

In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of that death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ’s love is stronger than death.

By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotic love but shudders at the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us. After all, Song of Songs CAN’T be pointing us to Jesus now that Driscoll has established it’s about techniques and positions. It CAN'T be about Christ's love for the Church because Driscoll interprets that as Jesus preparing to have homosexual intercourse with him.

For a man who has said "It's all about Jesus" he sure seems to have managed to transform his teaching about Song of Songs into a kind of "It's all about Driscoll" hermeneutic. As I said at the beginning, Driscoll must know Jesus said there would be no marriage in Heaven. Why would Driscoll even think a joke of this sort would even make sense? Those who interpret Song of Songs typologically aren't imagining genital penetration are they?

Well, to the degree that anyone can begin to guess at an explanation, let me refer to Driscoll's 1999 sermons on Song of Songs. Driscoll has been steadfast in revisiting this material. Driscoll's persistent introduction to Song of Songs includes his speculative fantasy that Solomon and Abishag were sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. This is fanciful nonsense. Solomon’s first wife mentioned in scripture was an Egyptian and that was, as scholars such as Iain Provan pointed out, a foreboding of how bad things would go in Solomon’s reign where faithfulness to the Lord was concerned.

Iain Provan and V. Phillips Long, both of whom contributed work to the study notes in the ESV translation, have addressed Solomon's accession in ways that show the Abishag fantasy to be particularly silly. Provan, in his commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, notes that Abishag was chosen to assist David because he had trouble keeping warm at night. Abishag’s presence in the court highlights what ends up being a story, at every level, of royal impotence (of every kind) in David’s final years. The narrative thread from “could not keep warm” to “did not know her sexually” to Adonijah deciding he had a shot at the throne is strongly implied in the narrative.

Provan and Long have both broached what Driscoll avoids--rumors of David's sexual impotence were taken as a sign of administrative impotence and failing health. At this Adonijah, like his brother Absalom, sees in his father's weakness a shot at the throne. Nathan and Bathsheba get wind of this and trick David into formally appointing Solomon as his successor both to save Solomon's life and to perform an end-run around Adonijah.

The idea that Solomon killed Adonijah because he was in love with Abishag himself is pure fantasy. Absalom (under Ahithophel's counsel) took some of David’s concubines and had sex with them in public both to shame his father and show that he was made of kingly stuff at the crudest level. By this time in Israel there was a precedent that if you took any woman who belonged to the king you were making yourself known as a claimant to the throne. Solomon didn’t have his brother killed because he and his father’s servant girl were carving their names in some nearby tree. It was a bluntly political gesture. Solomon knew his brothers had habits of forming insurrections to get power or were rapists. If he didn’t put his foot down in the sternest and most irreversible way possible he’d lose the kingdom and it would divide.

But in Driscoll’s make-believe Song of Songs Abishag is the peasant princess who won the heart of the king. Why? It's a fantasy he seems to have come up with back in 1999 when he first started reading, studying, and teaching Song of Songs. As he put it in his book Confessions of a Reformission Rev, Driscoll was very unhappy with his marriage and particularly the state of his sex life at that point in his life. He thought he'd go through Song of Songs and see if it could improve his marriage. He went into the book with an agenda that colored his approach. Now, it seems, Driscoll can't disengage from his love affair with Song of Songs as the canonized sex manual that fixed what he wasn't happy with in his marriage. Driscoll's hermeneutic of erotica toward Song of Songs is such a treasure to him he can't see that what it has done to his view of a biblical book is transform that book's message within the canon. Instead of "It's all about Jesus!" it must now be "It CAN'T BE about Jesus!" Yet the Lord’s words in Luke 24:25-27 and in John 5:39-47 aren’t going anywhere and must be accounted for, even when we’re discussing Song of Songs. I propose, in Driscollian parlance, that this is the Big E on the eye chart that has been missed for a decade not only by Driscoll's critics and fans but by Driscoll himself.

Introducing Wenatchee The Hatchet

2011-10-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

My new Internet and blogging friend goes by Wenatchee The Hatchet, WTH.

I met WTH on the Wartburg Watch where he made some intriguing and thoughtful comments on Mark Driscoll's mishandling of the Song of Solomon, SOS. I asked for further clarification of some of the things he said, and I began to understand that he had a grasp on the situation that went beyond anything that I had encountered before and beyond my own understanding.

Because SOS is near and dear to my heart as a place for the wounded soul to go find healing, I feel the need to counter act Mark Driscoll's high jacking of SOS and turning it solely into a sort of Christian Kama Sutra, or sex manual, for married couples.

WTH's ability to get to the root and heart of the matter with clarity and limited bias made me realize that I wanted his thoughts preserved on this blog for others who care about the issue and for myself and others to refer to when dealing with the mishandling of SOS.

WTH is uniquely qualified to write about this for several reasons.

For one thing, he attended Mars Hill, Driscoll's church, for nine years (1999-2008). And during his time there he served in four different ministries, the longest being with the Theological Response Team, where he handled questions. He got the position with the response team because he was known there as a well-studied Christian.

During his time with the response team he noted that the questions changed over the years and so did the handling of the questions. One of the changes in questions concerned the misuse of scripture. At the same time he began to have some reservations about the way Mark Driscoll handled certain scriptures.

His present attitude towards Mars Hill can be summed in this quote, "I have friends and some family at Mars Hill who I love a great deal and there are things I find admirable at Mars Hill but at length I came to disagree with them on more points than I agreed and had to find a new church home."

And concerning the debate over that which is Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll, he has this to say:

"I have found over the years that both the defenders and detractors of Mars Hill generally and Mark Driscoll in particular have too often lacked a true scholarly approach. Generally people come to the subject of Mars Hill and Driscoll with their minds made up in ways that prevent them from examining his teaching in a substantive way. Nowhere has this been more apparent to me than in how Driscoll has handled Song of Songs and how his self-appointed blogging allies and adversaries have discussed it. At my own blog, Wenatchee The Hatchet, I have attempted to include observations and criticisms of Driscoll that are predicated neither on unquestioning loyalty nor a reflexive dislike but on, when possible, a serious examination of the actual content and application of what Driscoll says and does."

For those that haven't noticed yet, WTH's blog has been added to my roll, the third male to have ever receive this honor.

Also, a confession. I have a "reflexive dislike" of Driscoll. I cannot help it. Not with what he has done to SOS. However, I know the best arguments are the ones based on serious examination like the one WTH has sent me. It is thorough and well-thought out and most needed in this debate.

I will be posting it in four posts:

I WTH's Intro and Part One
II WTH's Parts Two and Three.
III WTH's Part Four A
IV WTH's Part Four B

I'm doing it this way so that I can keep the entire content together yet in digestible sections that are easily referred back to.

On Coming Posts

2011-10-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

I started this blog sometime ago and named it, "From Bitter Waters to Sweet" for a reason. Okay, the initial reason was because it was an assignment for a class. But as I tried to come up with a topic or theme, I kept coming up dry so I had to think, "What really lights my fire?"

Well, one of the things that lights it is the combination of my love for God and the Scriptures and my repulsion, disgust, and sometimes shock at how people mess with God's word to make it into something else. How they form the scripture after their own hearts rather than allowing the scripture to get a hold of their hearts and change them.

This blog also has become a way for me to express my journey from bitter waters to sweet. I write in hopes to continue the journey and to share with others some of the things that I have learned along the way.

This journey has taken me to some very unexpected places in the Bible. One of those places is the book, "The Song of Solomon" affectionately referred to as SOS.

Those of my readers who have been with me a long time have seen my angry and very sharp reaction to some faulty teachings on SOS. I actually had a pretty violent reaction that I leave up for the sake of posterity. My anger had been softened over time even though the teachings still disgust me. The reason they disgust me is because they steal away the healing properties of SOS for the wounded and bitter soul and turn SOS into the Christian husband's manual for turning his Christian wife into his own private porn star so he doesn't have to deal with his porn issues and poor attitude towards sex and twisted view of what women are for.

Okay, I admit it. I still have some serious attitude. But I'm happy to say that I've come in contact with someone who is able to cut through the garbage of the pornification of SOS to the root of the problem. He deals with the issue deeply and thoroughly and in a manner that kicks the legs out from under this popular teaching that is perverting the hearts of many people.

Next post, I'll introduce you to my new friend and tell you a little bit about him and how and why he qualifies to take on this serious topic far better than me.

New Blog Added

2011-09-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

It is with great pleasure that I announce a new blog from and old Internet friend.

I've been aware of KR Wordgazer, or Kristen for some time. Some of my regulars here may know her as one of the No Longer Quivering FAQs ladies.

She's a Christian that has long been aware of spiritual abuse through her own experience and has applied herself to dealing with the Patriarchy and Quiverfull heresies with answers from the Bible.

http://krwordgazer.blogspot.com/

Also, I've gone ahead and added KR's blog to my blogroll and moved the blogroll up because those blogs are more active now than I am and I don't want anyone checking in here to miss the opportunity to see what else is going on in those blogs.

Something Completely Different

2011-09-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of completely different.

It's no secret here that I have an appreciation for fiction and in particular, speculative fiction. I've mentioned Star Trek here more than once and did a series on Apollonian and Dionysian and the affects of stories and especially Single Stories have on us.

Well, I follow a number of blogs, more than what I have listed on the side here. I follow a fictional blog in the genre of speculative fiction that also happens to be Christian. Now don't freak. It is NOT of the CBMW or Patriarchy variety. I have no stomach for fiction from those crowds.

No this is a far more mainstream Christian Spec. Fiction blog that includes Catholics and Mainstream Protestants. It is called Avenir Eclectia. Don't ask me how to pronounce it.

Mostly I have just followed it on my own, not mentioning it here because I saw little connection between it and what we talk about here.

However today's fictional post is on a topic a little nearer to what we talk about than usual so I thought I share it. Cultic misprophecies.

The lovely thing about Spec. Fiction is how it lends itself to exploring and resolving the issues we deal with today and even reoccurring issues that come up from time to time in Christian Circles.

So please, if you have time, take a peek at this piece by Walt Staples, "Stony's World: Apocalypse Preempted".

http://avenireclectia.com/2011/09/stonys-world-apocalypse-preempted.html

Yep, Been Busy

2011-09-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

I still check in to look at my blog roll to see what other people are talking about, but I have little time to create any posts myself.

So, as entertainment for those who still check in here from time to time, I thought I'd share a youtube video that I feel helps us remember what is important to God. If you don't love children, don't bother with this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6jruXPSakI

The Cold War and 911

2011-09-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

Relating my experience on 911 ten years ago over on Elizabeth Esther's blog has opened some deep places.

My children were young, home school age, boys: 12 and 11, and girls: 8, and 4.

My boys' friends came over and talked about joining the military. They were afraid that the terrorists would bomb our small town, population 2700, located over an hour away from anything that could be considered even a small city. I assured them that the terrorists were not interested in little ol' pop2700 us. That we were most likely safe.

But that moment got me thinking of when I was their age. Back then there was a different kind of war going on. It was "The Cold War". It is hard to explain to anyone who is too young to remember. Movies that could help to understand would be "The Iron Giant" and "War Games".

Back when I was in school, we were taught that the U.S. had nukes and the Soviets had nukes and that, whoever started a nuclear war, it didn't matter, we would all die, either immediately or later from radiation sickness or lack of food and water or some other complication. And it was put forth, or implied, or somehow I picked up that a nuclear strike could happen any minute. It could happen while I was at school or sleeping in my bed or playing with friends. It was something that always hung over my head.

911 was a terrorist attack that happened during a time of assumed peace. There was never a strike during that time of restrained hostility between two world powers, or The Cold War.

I would imagine that the children and young adults of 911 were traumatized worse than the children of The Cold War. 911 trauma was powerful and immediate. But those of us who grew up during The Cold War, some of us were also traumatized over the long term. And I don't know about the others, but I felt alone in my fears. I went to bed every night wondering if that was night that we would all be incinerated in our beds. 911 was a collective, nationally, even internationally shared trauma.

At the bottom of a lot of our fears is the fear of death, for ourselves, for our loved ones. The death of one person in our lives or facing death ourselves is a traumatic thing. 911 and The Cold War magnify this fear. The fear of death is a fear that covers people. It was this fear that lead me to the only Being who cold defeat death, our mortal enemy. And those of us who know Him take comfort in His power over death. We hold on to the One who defeated death. Hanging onto Him gets us through these things like 911.

Isaiah 25:7 And on this M0untain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. Vs 8a He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces,

911

2011-09-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Esther asked people to relate their memories of 911. So I did. I don't have the strength to do so again. So if you are curious, head on over there and read her memories, my memories, other people's memories and add your own if you feel so inclined. I think I'm comment number 10, or something like that.

http://www.elizabethesther.com/2011/09/where-were-you-on-911.html

Irene, please don't come to land

2011-08-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Very talented response to a very real threat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEQzRlr6CZI

Now someone equally talented needs to write an Irene hurricane song to this tune, although it is rather a bit to happy when dealing with this monster storm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1vtG3oyqg

Woman as Protector

2011-08-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

The mama bear instinct is alive and well in women, no matter how hard the gender hierarchalists try to stamp her out. Every time I travel down I-55 in Illinois, I see a sign about one, little known historical figure named Mother Jones.

Here is a link to a story about her:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/56952/little_known_history_detours_mt_olive.html

Don't believe the lies certain teachers promote. Both men and women are called to protect. Part of Womanhood is being a Protector

Launching

2011-08-19T06:08:00.001-07:00

This has been an emotional week.

I got back Tuesday from visiting my 94 year old grandmother 1000 miles west of here. I don't know if I will see her alive again or if my next trip west will be to her funeral.

Today, I take my oldest daughter to University. I'm launching my baby out into the world where she will either sink or swim. But I have confidence in her. She's wise, strong, and beautiful and can take care of herself. She'll do fine. I'm just really going to miss her being around the house.

Scarcity Thinking & Dominion

2011-08-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

Naomi King Walker has an excellent Blog Post on Scarcity thinking, something I have been aware of for some time but wasn't sure what it was called. It so much applies to Hierarchy and Patriarchy thinking that has infiltrated the church and cause so much heart ache in men, women, and children. Families are being broken by this false doctrine parading around as "Christian" and "God's divine order".

If you have a chance, bop over to Naomi's blog and read. You won't regret it.

http://womanmusicminister.blogspot.com/2011/08/pitfalls-of-hierarchy-scarcity-thinking.html

Lies (some) Men Believe About Women

2011-08-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

As I gear up for my trip out west, I have little time to put my thoughts down on this blog.
But I still get on line from time to time and come across some really good stuff.
A lot of what is going on in my blog roll is good, although I have one sad note.
My friend Charis, who comments as Gem here, is closing down her blog, "A Wife's Submission". Her thoughts on these things will be sorely missed. But as happens from time to time, we have to move on. And that is what she's has to do.

Also, I often visit Sierra's blog via Lewis's blog roll. She comes at dealing with fundamentalism from a different angle. Her post today touches on things I believe deal with what we talk about here. One of those things is the structures set up by men concerning women that have little to do with what women really think or the real reasons women do things. I could go on and explain, but Sierra at "The Unspoken Words" does a much better job. So if you have time, hop over and give her blog a view.

http://nonprophetmessage.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/hatred-and-modesty/

Images

2011-07-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

Both Darcy and Hillary are talking about the drive among patriarchs to make women... wives, daughters... weak and helpless. (see links below). I am worried about this in church and outside church.
My daughters were into the Twilight series and the emotionally needy Bella was concerning me. So I was delighted to see this montage of Buffy the Vampire Slayer verses Edward. I showed it to my daughters and now my youngest and I are watching the Buffy series on Netflix and last night we watched season 3 episode 20 where Buffy was voted "Class Protector" and given a cute, little, pink umbrella.
I feel it is important to show my daughters images of strong, capable, heroic women to counter balance both culture and the bad things going on in CBMW and Patrio land.

Anyway, females are not weak. Have you ever seen a mama bear robbed of her cubs? Me neither, but I've heard about it more than once and from the sound of it, it can get pretty bad.
Anyway, here is Buffy vs Edward, first. And below that Hillary's and Darcy's posts on the topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/2011/07/gentle-reality-check-for-daughters-of.html

http://darcysheartstirrings.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-women-and-protection.html

Traumatized By Ephesians Five?

2011-07-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

For my readers still suffering from PTSD from having Ephesians five shoved down their throats, let me tell you the reading assignment I'd give you if you asked me for one.

I'd say, read Ephesians chapters 1-4, skip 5, and if you are okay with chapter 6, read it. If chapter 6 also causes a degree of PTSD then skip 6 as well.

Now some would scream that I'm not respecting the family or the Bible or whatever by giving such advice. All I'll respond with is this. If I read all of Ephesians minus chapter 5 half a dozen times, it still wouldn't make up for the hundreds of times I've hear messages from chapter 5 while the teacher ignored the rest of the book. So in suggesting such a reading assignment, I'm not negating any part of the Bible. I'm simply bringing balance to an area so far out of balance in so many circle it is sick.

I knew a woman so traumatized by the word "submit" that if she saw it in completely innocent places like, "please submit paperwork to..." she'd have a panic attack. This is how bad it has gotten. And I'd really like people who have been traumatized to gain some benefit from the incredible book of Ephesians.

However, if just the word "Ephesians" traumatizes you, then you are better off reading Galatians, over and over, until God reveals to you the liberty that Paul is trying to get across.

One other little note on Ephesians 5 & 6:
As I've noted, neo-patriarchy and CBMW are hard at work creating an image and 'single story' of womanhood that strips women of being Deborahs (leaders), Huldahs (prophets/preacher/teachers), or Junias (apostle/elder). Their version of womanhood makes women small, weak, and helpless. This is wrong and not in keeping with how Christ handles his bride. First He gives his Bride all authority (check out Retha's link below). And according to Ephesians 6, he arms her to the teeth. This is a far cry from what Patriarchs and CBMWers do. They are too busy disarming and discouraging their women to see what they should be doing, what Christ does, arming and empowering.

http://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/authority-is-for-sharing/

MLK, Jr. on the Importance of Images

2011-07-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Getting back to my thoughts on MLK, Jr., Nichelle Nichols, and Star Trek, I want to look at King's words to Nichols from the link in the 7/21/11 post. In fact, in this post, I simply want to lay out the basics of the conversation and make a few comments on it.

MLK, Jr.: "You have one of the most wonderful roles. Images are so important. The manner in which you have created this character. We have great pride."
NN: "I'm going to miss my costars"
MLK, Jr.: "What are you talking about?"
NN: "I'm leaving the show."
MLK, Jr.: "You cannot do that."
NN: (I was dumbfounded.)
MLK, Jr.: "You have the first non-stereotypical role on television. For the first time the world sees us as we are supposed to be seen, as qualified, beautiful, intelligent people. And you are not a menial. You have to stay there."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the importance of images, the things people see. He understood how American television in the Sixties portrayed the typical African-American and how important breaking from that visual was.
I read somewhere else that when Whoopi Goldberg first saw the character Uhura on television, she got excited and ran to tell her mother that there was a black woman on TV who wasn't a maid.
This was big stuff. And M.L. King Jr. understood it even if the magnitude of it was lost on Nichols in that day.
But we see from the interview in the link that Nichols gets it today.

Images are so important. And narrow or 'single story' images must be counteracted.
For example, the image of Sarah calling Abraham 'lord' must be counter balanced with the Old Testament story of God changing Sarah's name from Sarai to Sarah, which means female ruler and the image of God telling Abraham to obey Sarah at one point.
And the images of Deborah, Huldah, the Proverbs 31 woman, Junia, the Chosen Lady that John writes about, and many others must be held up in contrast to the images that are pushed by CBMW and Neo-patriarchy.

Images are important. And as a mother of both sons and daughters, I understand the need to provide better images than what CBMW influenced churches want children to see.

Off-topic, But Not Really

2011-07-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy so haven't had time to construct my last "You have heard it said" post or follow up on why in the world I would bring up Star Trek, Lt. Uhura, and M.L.King,Jr. When time is more on my side I hope to get to both of these. Until then, let me direct you attention to a former Mix Martial Arts (MMA) fighter's take on Driscoll's obsession with MMA and his foolish attempt to connect it to 'biblical manhood'.
It is called "Confessions of a Cage Fighter: Masculinity, Misogyny, and the Fear of Losing Control"

http://theotherjournal.com/2011/06/28/the-confessions-of-a-cage-fighter-masculinity-misogyny-and-the-fear-of-losing-control/

Star Trek and Dr. M.L. King Jr.

2011-07-21T07:50:00.001-07:00

Now for something completely different.

Back in the Sixties there was a new television show that featured a multicultural cast, something never done before.

African-American Nichelle Nichols was cast as the communications officer, Nyota Uhura. This sort of thing is no big deal now. But back in the day, this was unheard of.

But Nichols was a stage actress and grew tired of the work that went into a television series and considered quiting.
Only an encounter with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made her understand the magnitude of her role and the revolutionary boundary pushing that Star Trek was in its day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNTSV4Eh0R4

(I am going somewhere with this. But I wanted to lay some ground work.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhura (Info on the character Uhura for the initiated.)

A Year Ago This Coming Sunday...

2011-07-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

On July 24th, 2010 a group of men and women, led by Shirley Taylor, demanded an apology from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) for their teachings that diminish women and exalt and encourage men to think more highly of themselves than they should.

CBMW teaches complementarianism which states that God created men to be the leaders and women to be the followers and bars women from positions held by women of the Bible like Deborah, Huldah, and Junia.

Complementarianism is not as rigid as outright patriarchy, but, their teachings support and add power and credibility to patriarchal teachings. Their teachings are also false, based on the traditions, doctrines, and commandments of men and cherry picking proof texts rather than on anything half way resembling good Bible exegesis and hermeneutics (see link for definitions below link to Shirley's blog.)

As Shirley notes today on her blog, we are no closer to getting an apology from CBMW. Nor am I holding my breath for that apology. Those people are locked in their mindset. Some of them know the little lies that are being told about the Bible that are needed to uphold their doctrine, but still they tell the lies. Only God really knows why they hold onto the lies. Perhaps it's a, "The old wine is better" thought pattern. Who can say.

Link to Shirley's blog:
http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/no-closer-today-in-getting-an-apology/

Links to definitions of exegesis and hermeneutics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

How About That Junia?

2011-07-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Men who won't let women be all that they are called to be, work long and hard to take away any and all biblical examples of women outside the worshiped patriarchy boxes.

If that sentence didn't make sense to you, let me try again.

Neo-patriarchs and CBMW do all that they can to hide or explain away all examples of female leadership in the Bible.

In case you have never heard of Junia, which is possible because it really is better to ignore her all together than to get involve in the quagmire of all the explaining away it takes to make her go away, then let me direct you to this link which talks about Junia who is well known among the apostles.
(I love it when I'm busy and someone else makes my job so much easier. Also, I link this because it links all of Suzanne's [of Suzanne's Bookshelf] posts on Junia all in one place.)

http://speakeristic.blogspot.com/2011/07/junia-psst-that-apostle-has-mustache.html

Have You Ever Heard of Huldah?

2011-07-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Deborah is hard to cover up. Two entire chapters in Judges are dedicated to her. One of those chapters is written, at least in part, by her. The other part was written by Barak, who looks to me to be honored anyway by having his words recorded in the Bible. Anyway, she's hard to ignore so instead men have tried to explain her away.

Well, Huldah was a prophet back during the time of Jeremiah. I suppose we shouldn't get too upset that we haven't heard much of her. Jeremiah wrote two whole books found in the Old Testament. Huldah is only mentioned in nine verses. II Kings 22:13-20 and II Chronicles 32:22-28.

And I might not think much of it, except that, have you ever heard of Jabez? He's mentioned in two verses I Chronicles 4:9 & 10. Yet there is book and an entire movement based on his prayer in verse 10.

Anyway, when a book of the law was found, hidden in the temple, the king had no problem calling Huldah rather than Jeremiah or any other male prophet of that day. And her prophecy was true.

So, according to the Old Testament, women can be leaders and can prophesy to men, including kings. So what's going on today that some men cannot accept women in leadership or the fact that a woman can hear from the Lord just as well as any man?

It is in the best interest of all people to become more familiar with the entire Bible, to read it for themselves, rather than to let certain teachers decide for us all which are the important verses and which verses should be ignored.

Links concerning Huldah and the Jabez movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prayer_of_Jabez

Have You Heard the One About Deborah?

2011-07-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

You know the one.

God could not find a single decent man in all the land to become the next judge of Israel. And since all those men were so worthless God had to resort to raising up a woman to judge. Her name was Deborah. At least that is how I've heard it taught before.

The problem is, if you read the account without the idea that women can't lead, you realize there is nothing written to imply that God chose Deborah because there were no qualified men. This is never said or even implied. It is something imposed on the text by men who would rather insult and emasculate ALL the Hebrew men living in Deborah's day rather than to admit that God simply picked Deborah because He wanted to use a woman this time.

The account of Deborah is in found in Judges 4 and words that supposedly imply that Barak was weak and afraid and that God wanted to punish him for it are found in vss 8 & 9.

8 Then Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” 9 She said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.

It is assumed from this that Barak was being punished for his lack of faith. But if you read it carefully, there is no real rebuke in verse 9. In fact, the verse could just as easily be interpreted as Barak trying to honor Deborah by asking that she go along. But even with this honor, Deborah reasserts that God wants this to be a woman's story, an example to those to come that God can and wants to work through women. God wants there to be a witness in His word to His daughters that women can be strong and mighty too, that this sort of faith is not reserved for men. Leadership is not reserved exclusively for men.

"Keep Sweet" After Thought

2011-07-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

Life gets busy and it gets hard to blog at times.

But even so, sometimes little things just strike me funny about the topics we cover and I just have to share.

You remember that song, "Put Another Log on the Fire" by Tompall Glaser?
If not I'll link if for you at the bottom of this post.

One of the classic lines from his song reminds me of John Piper and the "Keep Sweet" conspiracy that is infiltrating portions of the church.
The line goes like this:
"So sit here at my feet cause I like you when you're sweet. And you know it ain't feminine to fight."

An honorable mention also found in this song makes me think of Mark Driscoll and his comment about pastor's wives letting themselves go:
"Don't I warn you when you're getting fat."

And of course the last line is:
"Come and tell me why you're leaving me."
Which is exactly what women need to do with ministries like Piper's, Driscoll's, and every form and expression of patriarchy and CBMW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wO_6wMRS7A

Blog Highlight

2011-07-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

I've been aware of Suzanne for some time, for longer than I've been blogging. I first became aware of her on the CBE forum and then saw her other places that I went to. When I learned how to make a blog on my blog roll, Suzanne's was one of the first to go on it.

The fight to keep every expression of Christianity from becoming another Taliban religion has many fronts. The numerous blogs on my blog roll come at it from completely different angles. Suzanne's comes from a, keeping true to the original languages, position.

There is a Jihad force among certain Christians to push a certain, gender off-balanced version of the Bible into the hand of every Christian. This same force is hell-bent to malign another translation that is more gender inclusive. I could say more, but then I would reveal my ignorance in this area. So let me close by saying, I am so glad that Suzanne is around, has her blog, and is being faithful to the original languages in spite of the raging war to malign her and Bible translations that are more in keeping with the original languages.

http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-prophecy-on-peter-kirks-blog-came.html

A Note on Legalism

2011-06-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

I noticed something the other day. I was watching a TV show and there was a scene where teen mother needed help comforting her newborn. She didn't know that newborns liked to be wrapped up tight in receiving blankets or else they don't feel secure.

Now, I already knew that, having had four children of my own. But for some reason when I watched that, it came to me:

Being wrapped up tightly in a receiving blanket to a baby brings security just as being wrapped up tightly in legalism brings security to many new believers.

If one comes from a place where rules and regulations makes one feel safe, it's not hard to imagine transferring that need for security onto faith in God.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've seen many people go through this works base/legalistic phase of their Christian walk. I went through it myself. I've seen some get past it and on into true freedom and others get trapped in it and keeping their "security blanket" of rules and works long past the time when they should have gotten rid of it.

I Corinthians13:11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Too many Christians are still dragging around the receiving/security blanket of salvation by works and legalism. It is way past time to do away with childish things.

Did You Hear the One About Jezebel?

2011-06-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you have. Everyone has.
There is nothing that strikes fear into the hearts of men more than the dreaded "SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL"!!!

And everyone knows what that spirit is. It is a controlling spirit, found most often in women, that has the ability to castrate men and turn them into sniveling little Ahabs, the wimpy, less-than-a-man, a man to be hated and pitied for not having enough testosterone to fight his way out of a paper bag.

But here is the problem.

When you actually look at the spirit of Jezebel, it is not about a controlling woman at all. It is about a woman who teaches people to sin.

Revelation 2:20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.

One of the things the spirit of Jezebel teaches is fornication or pornography. I know this because when I looked up "acts of immorality" in the original Greek in a Strong's Concordance the Greek word used is the word we get both fornication and pornography.

So instead of the spirit of Jezebel being this awful, man-hating, male-castrating feminist spirit, it is actually more along the lines of a Play Boy, Hustler, pornography spirit that entices and exploits human sexuality and promotes prostitution and human trafficking.

The spitting hell-fire and brimstone preachers who warn against this Spirit of Jezebel have it all wrong. They don't know what they are talking about. They are preaching the superstitions of men, the witch-burning kind, and using scriptures that they ought to be applying to the porn problem that is running rampant in churches today.

Another Blog on My Blog Roll

2011-06-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

I actually added this one last week but was having trouble with posting on Blogger so had to make the announcement this week.

Incongruous Circumspection is hosted by Joe, a male survivor of the spiritually bankrupt patriarchy movement.

Patriarchy hurts everyone and no one benefits in the long run. It is good to hear the stories of those who escaped. It gives hope and underscores again how destructive patriarchy truly is.

http://incongruouscircumspection.blogspot.com/

Also, honorable mention this time is the Egalitarian Christian Alliance Forum. Here men and women talk about all things Egalitarian for those who are thinking of exploring this option for understanding the Bible.

http://equalitycentral.com/forum/index.php

Have You Ever Heard This One?

2011-06-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

"Marriage can only have one head. If it has two heads then it becomes a two-headed monster."

Implying that only men can be the leaders. If there are two leaders then it becomes a push me pull you with no direction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKkURpdzIQ&feature=related
"It is a bi-cranium, Madam."

Anyway, here is how the human logic flows.

It is assumed that head means "boss". Since head means boss and there can only be one boss that means that Ephesians chapter five is giving that position to the man who is the head, or that is, boss/leader etc. This saying is akin to Tuesday's saying, "Someone has to be in charge."

We have already refuted the "Someone has to be in charge" saying. So what do we do with this "Two headed monster" saying?

Well, we start with the premise that head means boss/leader in the first place. I'm not going to get all into the Greek and culture of the time argument. There are many good sources that questions the head=boss song and dance. No, I'm going to start somewhere else.

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

When a woman gets married, she suddenly gains two heads because Jesus or God should be her head or master and comp/patriarchal teaching gives her another master.

IF head means boss/leader/authority then married women have two heads and they deal with this two-headed monster dilemma anyway.

BUT if head doesn't mean boss/leader/authority then the dilemma is gone. And so is the problem of the two-headed monster. And perhaps this can then be applied: Two heads are better than one. (sorry, couldn't resist)

My whole point in this is to reveal that the two-headed monster saying, used to frighten women into submission, is human reasoning that isn't validated by scripture.

Patriarchy gives women two masters. Jesus says a person cannot serve two masters. Perhaps in light of this evidence, head doesn't mean boss/leader/authority.

The context of Ephesians 5 doesn't support it. Never is the husband told to lead. He is told to love and sacrifice. The original Greek doesn't support it. Head means a literal head or source as in the head or source of a stream. And the rest of the Bible doesn't support it.

So the two-headed monster argument falls flat because it means nothing when compared to the rest of the Bible.

I Heard It Said Once

2011-06-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

I met a fellow on line on an egalitarian board who was there to set all those wayward egals straight concerning what the Bible truly said.

He tried to be patient. He also had a heart for the abused, both male and female. And because of that sincere heart, I really couldn't completely dismiss him.

However, his solution for what ailed the world and Christian marriages was following the 'biblical' example of Patriarchy.

He was so sold on the idea that patriarchy was the biblical solution, the divine healing structure that he couldn't see that it was patriarchy that was causing so much of the trouble to begin with.He said something that I found to be absolutely stunning. It was something that he believed from the bottom of his heart.

He told me, "If you reject Patriarchy, you reject your heavenly Father."

Has anyone else ever heard this one? Does this man's claim hold up when compared to the words of Jesus?

Let's take a look.
Matthew 23:8 But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.

I don't know about you folks. But it seems pretty clear from the above passage that Jesus was not concerned about maintaining Patriarchy or any hierarchy structure for that matter. So it appears that Jesus Himself is rejecting Patriarchy. And if Jesus rejects Patriarchy, then I believe it is safe to say that rejecting Patriarchy is not equivalent to rejecting our Heavenly Father.

You Have Also Heard It Said

2011-06-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to pick on a specific thing that a specific small-minded man is quoted as saying. Mark Driscoll might be considered patriarchy light or medium to strong comp. Yet what he says is pretty standard fare among those involved in these teaching. He is just more bold in his presentation. He is quoted as saying:

"Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your role in the scripture.”

Now let's look at what Jesus said.
Luke 11:27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” 28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

A woman in the crowd is so moved by what Jesus said that she cries out, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which you nursed."

She could not think outside her role or her body parts because that is all she had known. The highest blessing any woman could ever have is to be related to a great man, like Jesus. And the highest relationship that a woman can have with any man is to be his mother.

Jesus answer to her, contrary to some teaching, was NOT to diminish motherhood or women. It was to remove the eyes of those listening from the cultural restrictions on gender and to the freedom of the Spirit beyond gender constraints.

Women, contrary to what Driscoll and other teach, are not saved by fulfilling a role. They are not saved by using their female body parts to serve others. They are blessed and saved by...

Wait for it...

Hearing the Word of God and observing it. The same way men are blessed and saved. What a concept!

Now, if part of the word of God that Jesus was concerned about was about gender, don't you think He would have used this teachable moment with this woman to re-enforce the need for her to fulfill her role so she could be saved?

Yet, amazingly, He undercuts gender and role requirements of the culture and makes all things level and equal.

All people, male and female, are blessed by hearing the Word of God and observing it. They are not saved by playing a role.

Dear Mark Driscoll, the hair on the back of our necks is not standing up because we are fighting God. It is because you are presenting a false gospel and you are defiling the pure gospel with bitter teaching. You are falsely accusing women of fighting against God when the truth is, you misrepresent God.

Please, Mr. Driscoll, stop building your doctrinal house on the sand of the traditions of men and find the bedrock of Jesus Christ who you claim to serve. Where women, gender, and roles are concerned, you are a false shepherd preaching bitterness and misrepresenting it as sweet.

You Have Heard It Said Today

2011-06-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

There are many cliches concerning "Christian" marriage flying around. They are modern day sayings that supposedly support the hierarchy of Compism or Patriarchy.

Let's look at one today:

"Someone has to be in charge."

I'm sure most of "you have heard it said": "Someone has to be charge."

It is an incredibly common phrase. It is also incredibly false when held up against the words of Jesus in red.

Let's look at those words.

Matthew 20:25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26 It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant,

Mark10:42 Calling them to Himself, Jesus *said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. 43 But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant;

Luke 22:24 And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. 25 And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ 26 But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant.

These words of Jesus are mentioned in three out of four of the Gospels and meets the need of a matter being established by two or three witnesses.
[Matthew 18:16 BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.]

According to Jesus, whose credentials we established last week as the final word on all things, the saying that someone has to be in charge in a marriage is completely false. And in fact, whoever wants to be the boss or the leader, he (or she) must make themselves the servant. And Jesus did not mean servant leader, another off-the-wall-crazy-double-speak saying that is liberally thrown around. Jesus meant servant, as in SERVANT. Servant leader does not fit in this equation in any conceivable way without some major twisting and manipulating by people who don't want to obey Matthew 20:25-26, Mark 10:42-43, and Luke 22:24-26.
There are no loop-holes in these words in red, no matter how men want to read Peter and Paul

"You Have Heard It Said"

2011-06-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

As we mentioned before, men have said all kinds of things about Jesus that simply weren't true.
People have also spoken things as divine truth that fell short of God's version of the truth.

In Matthew Chapter Five starting in verse twenty-one to the end of the chapter, Jesus starts dealing with what people say. Jesus lists six common sayings or understandings of correct behavior before God and then exposes how they fall short of how God really thinks.

If you have time, you can read the entire section, but for this post I thought we'd look at one in particular and show how history repeats itself.

One of the sayings is about divorce, which back then, only men could really do. And apparently it was very easy and a form of punishment when she didn't "obey" or "please" him as he thought fit.

Matthew 5:31 “It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; 32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

So if the wife burnt the biscuits one too many times because the baby was colicky, it was no big deal for the husband to send her away with no support.

And Neo-Patriarchy is following in this sinful practice and calling it God's will.

The following is to a link speaking about the Neo-Patriarch's way to deal with rebellious wives, wives who won't obey their husbands.
What they have to say falls under the category of, "You have heard it said." Just remember that Jesus said, only unchastity is grounds for a husband to divorce his wife. If she doesn't obey him or prop him up as the master/king of the house, this is not grounds for divorce, no matter how much Neo-Patriarchs want to make it all about who is the boss. Jesus makes it clear, Brian M. Schwertly does not, in any imaginable way, speak on behalf of God. He speaks on behalf of Patriarchs everywhere.
http://equalitycentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=1271.0

Houses of Sand

2011-06-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Matthew 7:24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

The problem with the doctrines and structures of men is that they are built on sand and not rock.

I've told that to a man before indicating that the words of Paul were not the foundation or pattern for marriage and family and he pointed out to me that the words of the apostles and the prophets were the foundation of the church, and I believe there is a scripture to back that up.

HOWEVER, looking at these verses in Matthew seven more closely, I see that the words of Jesus are even DEEPER than the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. They are the bedrock that the foundation is built on.

And men who teach false doctrine are guilty of building their doctrinal houses on sand, or their false view of Jesus. Perhaps they are applying the words of Peter or Paul as the foundation, but still their foundation is built on sand.

You have to START with an understanding of who Jesus is and what He expects. You CANNOT assume you know and start building with the Epistles of Peter and Paul. Even their words, the very words of the apostles, are worthless without the bedrock of knowing Jesus.

Ignoring the words of Jesus to obey a warped understanding of Paul is not the Gospel. It is picking and choosing words from a book on which to build a religion devoid of God or any understanding of Him.

This is why you make sure you put first things first and listen to the Voice of the Shepherd first and foremost before the voices of the under shepherds.

If Any Man Teach Otherwise

2011-06-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

I Timothy 6:3-5 “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.”

I could expound on these verses above. But instead I'd like to direct your attention to a friend of mine who already has. In fact her post, written in December of 2010 had such an impact on me, the verse quoted above has joined my list of favorite verses.

Waneta's insight is always good. But every now and again, she hits it out of the park and more people need to be aware of it.

So please give Waneta's post a view, it is in agreement with what I've written here so far.

http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com/2010/12/proud-bible-thumpers.html

Confirmation From Heaven

2011-06-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Luke 3:21 Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”

Luke 9:34 While he was saying this, a cloud formed and began to overshadow them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” 36 And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent, and reported to no one in those days any of the things which they had seen.

Voices from heaven give witness to the deity of Jesus.

The first Voice, at the baptism, simply confirmed God's favor on His Son. The second, at the transfiguration, actually gave instructions to those who were present with Jesus on the mountain. The Voice told them, in no uncertain terms, to LISTEN TO HIM.

Now I ask you, to which of the angels of heaven, the prophets of old, or the apostles of the new testament did a voice come out of heaven and say, "Listen to him."?

The answer is (fanfare please): NONE

Voices came from heaven to tell them things to do, but not to confirm who they were to anyone else.

Now I'm not trying to pick on people or angels concerning what they did or what they said. I'm only pointing out the glaring fact that, when trying to decide the 'biblical' view on anything, is it EVER right to subvert the words Jesus Christ, written in red, to the words of ANYONE ELSE, human or angelic? EVER?

And yet this is what men do when they try do define God, Jesus, God's will, and 'biblical' this or biblical' that. They find support for their false doctrines in a false understanding and false translations of the words of Peter or Paul. In essence, they rob Jesus to pay Peter and Paul.

"Who Do Men Say That I Am?"

2011-06-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

Matthew 16:13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” 14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.

Peter was being kind here. Some men called Jesus a drunkard and a glutton. Others said He had a demon.

Anyway, the main point here is that men say a lot of things about Jesus that simply aren't true. There have always been such men. There will always be such men. What that means to you and me is that we cannot just take any teacher's word for it concerning Jesus Christ.

Peter did not take other people's view of Jesus to heart. Peter walked with Jesus and learned who He was through first hand experience. Even then, when Peter gave the right answer, Jesus pointed out that this knowledge of who He was is not attainable through flesh and blood teachers without the Father giving a revelation of Who He is.

Too many teachers raise themselves up as authorities on who God is but they are speaking out of their own limited hearts and understanding and they muddy up the waters of true understanding.

Everyone who would ever want to lay hold of Jesus Christ needs to spend time away from organized religion.

Time with Him in the prayer closest and with the Gospel words written in red, away from the clamoring noise of teachers promoting their own, controlling religion is not a bad idea. But it also must be done with caution and humility, lest we fall into the same trap as controlling teachers.

"Who Are You, Lord?"

2011-06-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

When Saul got knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus, he really wanted to know Who knocked him off.

Acts 9:1 Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,"

And as I mentioned before, Jesus gave him the short answer. I also mentioned that Saul asks a very good question. One that all of us should ask, and keep on asking, as long as we walk this earth.

Who is the Jesus, Immanuel, who walked among us?
Do we really believe we can figure it all out in a few years or even a few life times?
In order to understand what God really wants, it is best to start with Who He is.

Preparing the Way

2011-06-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Luke 3:2b ...the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. 3 And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; 4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, ‘MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT. 5 ‘EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED, AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW; THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT, AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH; 6 AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.’”

John's mission was to prepare the way for Jesus.
This included declaring that the valleys will be filled and the mountains will be made level. We saw this even at his conception and during the time his mother was pregnant with him. The exalted High Priest was brought down and the lowly barren woman was raise up so that when all things evened out, they were equal.

John told the people to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. When they asked what they should do he said:
Luke 3:11 “The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.”

When the tax collectors and soldiers asked what they needed to do he said:
Vs13 “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.”
And
Vs 14b“Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”

John was preparing people's ears to hear the Voice of the Infinite. He told the people in verse 16“As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

John did well in his work and words using them to begin the task pulling people out of the man-made structures that bound and orienting them around to the way God thinks.

And just for good measure, let's jump forward and see what the Infinite has to say about John the Baptist, His forerunner.

Luke7:24 When the messengers of John had left, He began to speak to the crowds about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces! 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. 27 This is the one about whom it is written,
‘BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.’
28 I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
29 When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John. 30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

And we see that the regular, lowly people including tax-collectors were orienting themselves to the ways of God, while those of higher status, the Pharisees and lawyers rejected God's way of thinking and clung to their own human structures instead.

Immanuel, God With Us, Part 2

2011-06-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

After picking on Zacharias yesterday, I thought I'd balance things out a bit and talk about Joseph. Let's look at Matthew Chapter One again.

Matthew 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

Notice in verse 19 that Joseph is called a righteous man. Notice, also, that he is not a vindictive man but rather merciful. When his betrothed is found to be with child, no doubt his heart was broken. But he did not lash out in self-righteous indignation. Instead, he chose to put away Mary quietly to avoid bringing more attention and shame to her than what she would already face.

Notice, also, that once he had the dream, he obeyed, took her as his wife, and became her partner in the face of the shame and whispers that undoubtedly followed them wherever they went.

Yes, Joseph certainly was a righteous man. He also had many other good qualities and was well suited to be the surrogate father of our Lord when He was a child, which in included mercy and empathy.

Immanuel, God With Us

2011-06-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

No, it's not Christmas. But sometimes it's good to look at these scriptures without all the cultural and seasonal traditions attached to them.

Matthew 1:20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife,

You know, when God decides to come to earth, it is no small matter. An awful lot of preparation is needed in order to make room for the Infinite in a finite world.

Before the Infinite was conceived, a way also had to be made for His forerunner, John the Baptist. So an old priest serving in the Jewish Temple in the Holy of Holies was visited by the angel Gabriel and told that his aged wife would conceive. Instead of believing, he doubted and was struck dumb. But his wife, Elizabeth, conceived nonetheless. [Luke 5:5-25]

Later Gabriel went to visit Mary to tell her what was to come and she received it with joy saying, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” [Luke 1:38]

Why all this review of Scripture? Because we need to see how God prepared the people involved with this greatest miracle of all -- Immanuel, God With Us.

If God really walked on the earth, then the words He spoke while He was with us are of the utmost importance. Understanding those words and perceiving the Heart that those words came from will help us gain a better grasp of who He is.

In some Bibles, the words of the Infinite are written in red. I desired to get to those words but became aware of the importance of the preparation that happened even before God walked among us. I began to see the orientation that occurred before the Infinite was born among the finite.

Mary, when she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Holy Spirit came upon her and she spoke what is referred to as the Magnificat. [Luke 1:46-55]

Now, remember, Elizabeth's husband was struck dumb. And the child in Elizabeth's womb was the one who would "MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT. ‘EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED, AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW; THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT, AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH;" [Luke 3:4&5]

So we have two pregnant women, one was an unmarried teen and the other one was far past the childbearing years, greeting each other in Luke chapter one. There was only one patriarch present. Zacharias also happened to be High Priest that year. But apparently the voice of a patriarch was not needed for that greeting or for the three months that Mary stayed with Elizabeth.

Pay attention to one of the things Mary said in her Magnificat:

Luke 1:51 “He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. 52 “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. 53 “HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS; And sent away the rich empty-handed.

Already God is working to orient people to His heart concerning things. Already He is bringing down the mountains, like patriarchs and priests, and raising up the less important in society, like unmarried pregnant teens and barren women.

But don't worry about the dumb patriarch. He got to learn in quiet submission to his wife and he gained a whole lot of good, Holy Spirit theology from a couple women for three months. At John's birth he had the opportunity to come into agreement with his wife and submit to God on the name of his son, which he did. Then his tongue was loosed.

Luke 1:59 And it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zacharias, after his father. 60 But his mother answered and said, “No indeed; but he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.” 62 And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called. 63 And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished. 64 And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God.

After his voice was silenced and his heart was humbled God gave him the gift of prophecy and he prophesied in verses 67-79. He had the privilege of having his prophecy recorded in the same chapter as Mary's prophecy.

But none of this happened until after he was made silent and had to listen to two obscure women in his house go on and on for three months about the miracles of God and His love and mercy upon the lowly.

Perhaps I'm picking on Zacharias just a bit. But I believe that Zacharias was deeply blessed and moved by the experience. I also believe that he and Elizabeth were excellent parents to John, to help prepare him to prepare the way for the Lord.

Orientation

2011-06-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I went with my daughter to her college registration and orientation. While sitting there listening to presentation after presentation, a thought came to me.

You know how it is when a child has to make the transition from grade school to middle school or junior high to high school or from high school to college? It's a whole new world. Sometimes it's a whole new set of rules and definitely a whole new schedule.

It's a good thing these institutions have orientations to help the new student to get acclimated to all the changes and all the requirements.

While sitting there at my daughter's orientation, I realized that much of our walk with the Lord is us learning how to oriented ourselves to His way of thinking and doing things. We have to learn how to see things as He sees them. And the way He sees and thinks things is so much higher than the way we see and think about things.

You remember that before the Apostle Paul became an apostle he was the Pharisee Saul who persecuted the church. With all sorts of Zeal he thought he was doing God's will by trying to stamp out this new religion that he believed was a heresy.

Well, in Acts chapter nine, Saul had his road to Damascus experience. He was thrown from his horse by God. When he asked, "Who are you Lord?" God said, "I am Jesus who you are persecuting." (Acts 9:1-5)

I love Saul's question. He asked God who He was. And Jesus gave him the short answer that day. But Paul spent the rest of his life learning the long answer of just exactly who Jesus was. Paul didn't start our preaching and writing epistles after his road to Damascus experience. He went to the desert for 14 years or more to orient himself to who Jesus was. (Galatians 1:11-2:2)

My son and I have been watching the television series "The Universe" on Netflix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Universe_(TV_series)
We are in season two.

Did you know that Scientists did not know that there was anything beyond the Milky Way galaxy until the 1920s?

The deeper they are able to look into space, the universe, the more they realize how infinite it really is and how much more there is to know about even things nearby.

So, here's my question.
When God said "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts," did He mean, as high as the clouds or blueness of the daytime sky, or was He referring to something well beyond the outer stars of the Milky Way Galaxy?

The problem with boxes is not only that we try to put each other in them, we also try to get God to fit into a box that is shaped and limited by our own finite thinking.

Of course He doesn't fit into our little boxes which is a problem. But an even bigger problem is that we try to orient ourselves to this little box that we have made for God. Once we do this, we think that the way we think lines up with the way God thinks when really it only lines up with our terribly flawed and insufficient understanding of the Infinite.

Human Structures in Review

2011-06-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

We have spent three months on human structures.
In March we looked at Job, false structures and started talking about order vs chaos or Apollonian vs Dionysian and even touched on yin/yang.
In April we looked at the Wild at Heart phenomenon and how it has affected the church and perpetuated a not always female friendly male vs female structure. We also looked at the tiny boxes or structures that small-minded men build for women using religion to beat them into down into those boxes.
In May, we looked at big-hearted men and contrasted the loving freedom they offer to women with the limiting, restrictive structures that small mind men uphold for their sisters. We also did a rather long series on Chimananda Adichie's "Single Story" and how this applied to human structure.

Perhaps I've spend an inordinate amount of time on human structures. If so, it is only because I want people to start discerning the existence of these human structures and begin to hold them up to the light of scripture in order to debunk the false structures.

But this month, the lovely month of June, we will turn our attention on some of the ways that God structures things and how they differ from human structures.

And here I will leave you a verse.

Isaiah 55:8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord.
Vs 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, SO are My ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.

The Single Story and Structure

2011-06-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that I spent so much time on the Single Story is because it was a new way of looking at what we have been discussing here.

Whether fiction or non-fiction, a story is a structure. It has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. And stories have always been one of the ways we have used to make sense in a world that often doesn't make sense. Stories help us to find or create order out of our chaos.

As mentioned before, structures, including stories, are not bad in and of themselves. We human beings crave structure for the sake of security. But structures, even decent structures, can be used or recreated into something limiting and abusive.

The forcing of religious, gender and family structures within Christianity has crossed the line and become abusive. They have been constructed by those who cling to the past and fear the future. They have been constructed by those who worship structure and find their safety in enforcing structures rather than in seeking and following God, the Chief Architect and Builder. [Hebrews 11:10 New American Standard]

My desire is to seek God and to find Him and to learn what is important to Him and to follow the structures He lays out.

One of the best places in the Bible to learn about the structures and order that are truly important to God is in the words of Jesus in red. And a good place to start for the weary is in Matthew chapter eleven.

28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The structures of men are exhausting.
The structures of God bring rest to our souls.

The Single Story and The False Balance

2011-06-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 11:1 A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight.
Proverbs 20:10 Differing weights and differing measures. Both of them are abominable to the Lord.

The fact of the matter is this, the Single Story, by it's very nature, is off-balanced. It over focuses on one aspect or a few aspects of a matter, any matter, while ignoring all the rest. Having such tunnel vision on anything can do nothing else but create a great imbalance.

This is what Patriarchy and the pushers of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood do when they reduce all things having to do with gender down to their Single Story.

It is a form of Phariseeism and is unjust.
I've written on Phariseeism and the false balance before. It includes a link to an excellent article on Cindy K.'s Under Much Grace blog that is well worth reading.
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2010/07/phariseeism-and-false-balance.html

The Single Story and Religion

2011-05-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

If you recall from the talk Chimananda Adichie gave that was linked here Friday, May 2oth, she spoke of being relegated to a Single Story by her American University roommate. The roommate kept thinking certain things about Chimananda because she came from Africa. Chimananda kept surprising her roommate with the many stories that Chimananda really had.

It was difficult for the roommate to see past the Single Story in her mind, but eventually she had to come to terms with Chimananda's many stories. Fortunately for them both, the "African" Single Story that Americans tend to believe is not backed up by religion and "Thus saith the Lord." So adjustments can be made to accommodate Chimananda's many stories.

Women oppressed by "Biblical Womanhood" have a much harder row to hoe because the Single Story that is written there comes along with, "And if you don't accept this as Gospel and God's Divine Order, you are displeasing to God."

Opposing the Single Story of Biblical Womanhood is considered the same as opposing God. Those in power have written this into the Story. Some even back up the Story with hellfire and brimstone holding a woman's very salvation hostage to the Story.

This is why it is so difficult to get women trapped in the Single Story to see the freedom that lies outside that story and in the many stories of God, the Bible, and what is written concerning His dealings with women.

But more people are talking. More men and women are telling their stories. Hopefully God will bless those still trapped in the Single story with ears to hear more stories from the Bible.

The Single Story and Big Hearted Men

2011-05-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

The beauty of big hearted men is that they DON'T reduce their women down to the Single Story or work to take away their voices.

Big hearted men create a place where a woman can speak freely from her heart of pain and bitterness and not be chided for not holding to the Single Story that CBMW and Patriarchy has written for her.

A good example of this, of course, is Lewis Wells and his drive to set the daughters of Patriarchy free from the Single Story that Patriarchy has written for them. He sees the need to give them space to heal and be delivered from the oppression of that Single Story.

Here is a link to a particularly good post from him on healing those wounded and destroyed by Patriarchy. In it, he emphasized the need for young women to find out who they are and to be given the freedom to say or not say what the want, when they want to, because they have never has that right before and don't even know how to walk in it.

http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2011/05/to-heal.html

Lewis doesn't use terms like "Single Story" or phrases like "Find their voice". But the road he recommends for healing will help women to break from the Single Story and find their own, authentic voice.

In contrast, Tina Anderson's pastor, Chuck Phelps, did what he could to control and squash Tina's authentic voice. He reassigned her a fake voice and gave her a Single Story concerning what happened to her. Instead of the true and many stories of betrayal, broken trust, the strong oppressing the vulnerable, etc. he gave her the story of 'temptress', 'strange woman', and needing to be held responsible for her share of the blame. He held her responsible for things she couldn't control and decided that Tina was not a wounded and exploited lamb. Rather, he assigned her the position of scapegoat, bearing the brunt of the guilt and sending her away from the camp to bear her shame with strangers. Then those strangers forced Tina to write a letter of apology to the wife of her alleged rapist for betraying her.

http://www.tinaandersonfoundation.org/

I am glad, after all these years, that Tina has found her voice and has the chance to bring to light more stories concerning her life and the dark times she was forced to walk in by others.

The Single Story and Small Minded Men

2011-05-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

The small minded men in Church leadership that we covered between April 22nd through May 2nd are not confined to the Single Story. Since all three of them have huge platforms and far reaching ministries, they are able to tell many, many stories that make up their lives and their understanding of God and the universe.

I am aware of their many stories and am not capable of reducing them down to a single story if I ever wanted to.

But these men have taken their large ministries and influence and have used their clout (power) to reduce me and other women down to a Single Story.

They have also tried to take away the true voices of women and replaced them with a fake, plastic, CBMW approved voice that doesn't let on that there is anything more than the Single Story of Womanhood.

Voice and the Single Story are not the same things, but they are related. Having a voice is having the ability to speak for yourself and tell your many stories. The small minded men of Piper, Driscoll, and Grudem have big voices and tell many stories all the while using their pulpit and their platform to rob women of authentic voice and to reduce women down to different versions of the same story.

If you recall Driscoll feels very free to define a woman's voice and feels free to be the author of her story as we noted earlier. When talking about how women should be "...his voice becomes soft and gentle as he says that the woman who is quiet and non-assertive, who wouldn’t even ask for that position, she is the one that would be best in that position [of leadership]." (From April 29th post and Freedom4Captives blog)

Piper, if you recall, is the one who, in the book, "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood," cautions women on how to address men so that their 'Manhood' isn't threatened. He tells women that when a man asks a woman for directions, she must alter her voice so that she appears submissive to him while giving him those directions.

Piper is also the guy the wants to define sweet for women and how a woman should respond to her husband when he is pressuring her to join him in gross sin. He gives her a fake, non-authentic voice and he writes a Single Story for her when he says she should respond with:
"Honey, I want so much to follow you as my leader. God calls me to do that and I would love to do that. It would be sweet to me if I could enjoy your leadership. But if you ask me to do this, require this of me, then I can't. I can't go there." (quoted from 2/21/11 post "Men Defining Sweet for Women". )

Small minded men have the privilege of speaking in their own, authentic voice and telling many many stories about themselves, relationships, life, God, and the universe. But rather than allow women to have their own voice and their own stories, they use their power and influence to take away the woman's true voice and reduce her down to a Single Story.

The Single Story and 'Biblical' Womanhood

2011-05-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

You knew this was coming.

Much has been said about Biblical Womanhood and much teaching has been handed down by those in power concerning their Single Story of Womanhood.

Much also has been said concerning the short list of scriptures telling the same version of the Single Story. Many have pointed out how the pushers of Biblical Womanhood ignore or explain away scriptures that add more stories to what Biblical Womanhood actually is.

Those who focus on the Single Story of Biblical Womanhood ignore or explain away or redefine the stories of Deborah, Miriam, Huldah, Priscilla, the Proverbs Woman, II John's Elect Lady, Mary and Martha, just to mention a few.

The definers and story tellers of "Biblical Womanhood" have told one story. They have have shown Biblical Womanhood to be one thing and only one thing, over and over until that is what it has become to the neglect of so many other stories concerning women in the Bible.

They have also taken books of the Bible that might mention women in particular or have instructions for women or marriage and have so over focused on those few verses that they have neglected dozens of other verses within that book that tell other stories that include women.

We are not obligated to live within the restrictive structure of CBMW/Biblical Womanhood's Single Story. Doing so only brings deep sorrow and denies how big God really is.

The Single Story and Christian Marriage

2011-05-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Years ago I heard a lady speak of a time when she and her husband were going through marriage problems. When she went for counseling, the pastoral staff told her that she needed to go back and submit and that would somehow solve the problem.

So she did. But things didn't get better.

Then she prayed, which she should have done in the first place. When she prayed, she felt an impression concerning the problem which she had not thought of which led to a different solution. When she applied the solution, it worked.

The lady telling the story had no issue with submission, she didn't even have an attitude toward the pastoral staff and their single Story Solution. She was simply expressing the importance of going to God rather than men when looking for help because men can't see the whole story but God can.

Just the other day I was on a blog talking about something anonymously, mentioning difficulty in an area of my marriage. Some guy who knew that I leaned egal felt the need to tell me the reason for our issues. He suggest that the reason there was difficulty in my marriage was because I had 'wrestled' my husband's rightful position of 'authority' away from him in the family order which set all thing askew and topsy turvy. He recommended that I needed to set aside my egal views and submit as the Bible prescribed so that all things would re-align and come into a proper and divine order.

Her again is the Single Story cropping up where it doesn't belong.

Marriage is complicated and has many stories. Yet some people reduce it down to hierarchy, order, and a certain structure and make it all about who is the boss. They miss the fact that perhaps the advice they give may be wrong because it has nothing to do with the original problem. And they cannot even fathom that the advice they give may actually make a bad situation worse. The reason they cannot see it is because they cannot see pass the Single Story they have written or have been taught that marriage is.

And herein lies the danger of the Single Story. People and relationships cannot be reduced down to roles and rules, yet this is what is done in many Christian circles.

They reduce marriage and all the problems in marriage to different versions of the Single Story. And since it is the men who traditionally have been in power over scripture, translation, and dividing the Word, these men have written a certain story that that best suits them. If something is wrong in a marriage it must somehow be the woman's fault. Once she has tried everything to be perfect to the satisfaction of the men in power, then perhaps they might consider that submission isn't the solution.

And this is why women need to wise up and go directly to the Source concerning their story. God is the Author and Finisher of our faith, not men. Men don't see the many stories involved. They focus in on the one they like or is most important to them. Their view is finite. God's is infinite and He sees the end from the beginning and all the stories involved in the person of you.

Off Topic and Completely Spontaneous

2011-05-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Retha made a comment under one of the strong men posts about one of the guys bringing again to my remembrance what he's made of.

As I was composing a response I remembered an old CD by Rich Mullins called "Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth" and I thought of these guys and what motivated them. And part of this title came to me. Actually the words, "Stuff of Heaven" popped into my mind and the thought, "These guys are motivated by the stuff of Heaven." Then I thought of Rich's CD. It's the one that had the song, "Awesome God" on it.

And on a whim I wanted to share the lesser known music (than Awesome God) on "Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth" with people who may never have heard it. This is that Quaker boy from the Heartland who wrote the song about the plains that blessed me so much that I wrote about it back on April 9th.
So if you have time, especially if you haven't heard it before, it's old, but good stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm2A5IJlOWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_FznQW1xrI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibi7W42N64c

Reflections on the Single Story, part 2

2011-05-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Chimananda Adichie said other interesting things about the Single Story in the youtube video that was linked here Friday. She said at the 9:23 mark that it was "impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power."

She said, in effect, that it is the powerful who are able to control to story, not just to tell it but to make it definitive. It is the powerful that have the control to make the single story the defining and conclusive story.

She gave the example of herself stating that she had many stories of America and knew that America was not limited to a single story like her own country and continent.

She also stated at the 13:10 mark that "The single story creates stereotypes, not that they are untrue but they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
Chimananda listed three things that the single story does:
~It robs people of dignity
~It makes recognition of equal humanity difficult
~It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we similar.

Near her conclusion, Chimananda said that stories have been used to dispossess and malign. but that they can also be used to empower and humanize. She said that stories can break the dignity of a people and also to repair broken dignity.

If it sounds like I'm just rehashing what she has said, forgive me. I simply wanted Chimananda's words in print to refer back to for when we explore her concept of the single story and how it relates to the powerful and how they disempower and marginalize those that they want to control using religion and other means.

Reflections on the Single Story

2011-05-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Nigerian Novelist, Chimananda Adichie, in the youtube video I linked Friday, spoke about something she calls "The Single Story."
As Hannah commented, Chimananda spoke a mouthful.

I love the way she displayed how much stories affect us and how important stories are to our lives. I also appreciate her caution to us concerning "The danger of the single story".

The story she told about the house boy from a poor family illustrates the impact of hearing only one story over and over again. When she was eight, her mother always spoke of how poor this family to the point that Chimananda couldn't think of him in any other way. How poor this family was became "the single story" of her understanding of them. That single story became so embedded in her that when they went to visit that family, she was shocked at the beautiful basket the houseboy's brother had made. And she learned that poverty was not their only story. They were also hardworking. And as she told the story, I could see that they were also handy, artistic, and creative. There was so much more to their story than being poor.

Chimananda said, at the 9:25 mark that the way you create a single story about a person, family, or people group it that you show them "as one thing and only one thing over and over again and that is what they become."
Chimananda warns us of the danger of the single story. And as she spoke I saw and understood the truth and wisdom of her words and began seeing the danger she spoke about and some of it related to the things I've been trying to get across.

The Single Story

2011-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this video the other day and was going to hold off and show it at a later date because I wanted to pursue the comparisons and contrasts of small minded men vs big hearted men.
But something Kay said in a comment made me want to go ahead and link this so we can talk about it later.

The video is 20 minutes long so view it when you have time.
But I believe it would be well worth your time.
The speaker is a Nigerian author who also happens to be a good speaker. She deals with an old topic from a new and fresh perspective that I think applies to some of the things we discuss here. So I'm linking it this morning and hopefully, all 15 of you that come by from time to time will get to view it over the weekend before I begin to refer back to it next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

Two New Blogs Added to Blog List

2011-05-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have been visiting two blogs that I want to add to my Blog Roll.

Retha is a new friend from South Africa. I love the name of her blog, "Biblical Personhood". When one sees the over emphasis by so many on the differences between men and women and how important men and women follow different rules for life, it's nice to see another voice reminding everyone in their name that we are all human first. When the differences are over emphasised and extra rules are made up to divide the human race into two different species with different rules pertaining to each (something the Bible doesn't do) it's good to see someone questioning all the ranting and raving about cultural decline due to not following blue and pink roles for humans.

Kay on "Happy Surprise" is exploring the implications of gender roles, among other things, and asking the hard questions about what she believes and what she should believe. I find her honesty and journey inspiring. She has both egal and comps commenting on her blog, and it has been, for the most part, friendly.

I Support Tina Anderson

2011-05-18T11:12:00.001-07:00

Okay, all my friends know that my computer and Internet abilities are severely lacking. And my friends just accept me the way I am.

Even so, I want to show my solidarity with Tina Anderson and all the women and girls who have been damaged by the male-superiority leadership machine within portions of the church.

I tried and tried to copy the display that Cindy has on her blog to show my support for Tina but I failed. So instead, to show my support and solidarity and to show my agreement that pedophiles within the church need to be brought to justice, I'm simply linking Cindy's blog.

So if you want to add your support, go to Cindy's blog and hopefully you will have more success copying the button onto your blog (if you have one, otherwise, just be aware of this situation and add your prayers of support for Tina).

http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2011/05/support-tina-anderson.html

Lost Comments

2011-05-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

When Blogger hit its most recent hiccup, I lost at least two already approved comments. One from Waneta and one from Hannah.

I don't know how many unapproved comments were lost that I never saw.

Also, that hiccup kind of threw me. I was on a roll but due to not being able to post and having the posts I had made being scrambled and otherwise mistreated my roll was thrown off.

I hope to get into comparing and contrasting true brothers of women to the false brethren who don't want to be brothers, but rather lords, masters, high priests, and little Christs to their women.

True brothers inspire their sisters onto godliness.
The false ones push down, push back, reduce, and weaken their women. And though the false brothers may be brothers in the sense that they call upon the name of Christ, they undermine their position of brothers in the lives of women by trying to be more than what they are called to, by thinking more highly of themselves than they ought.

And I wanted to get into comparing and contrasting the True with the false because women need to be careful of whose voices we listen to. Not all men who claim to love God know how to love and encourage their sisters.

Houses of Healing

2011-05-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

There is a scene from Lord of the Rings that didn't appear in the theatrical version. I've shared it elsewhere. But because it seems to go with this series on strong men and men who have the heart of true brothers towards women, I've decided to link it here for those of my friends who haven't seen it yet.

Jesus taught us to treat one another as brothers and sisters. And this view is so lost when you start dividing things up into boxes and roles and giving one gender the lesser role. When in fact we are all called (male and female) to be warriors and brothers of light. The chapter that immediately follows Ephesians 5 is Ephesians 6 which tells us, regardless of gender, to take up the full armor of God. Yet the role pushers want to make only men warriors and relegate women to helpless damsels in distress, or victims. And such a set up sets women up for failure. Then when failure comes, the woman is relegated to the level of strange women and her humanity, brother/sisterhood is lost and she becomes even lesser still and a thing to be mocked, warned against, and even further used.

More about that later.

This scene opens up with a heart wrenching cry from a warrior brother who has discovered his sister's body on the battle field and shows his anguish over her. Then it quickly moves to the following scene in the houses of healing and what follows there.

The reason I like this scene is because it shows a couple things. One, the love of a brother for his sister (who refused the box of her culture and went into battle thus fulfilling an ancient prophecy and gaining a huge victory). And, two, the healing of this sister by another man who is not her biological brother, but is most definitely her brother in arms and in heart.

There is a third man shown who becomes a love interest later, but in this scene it shows his attraction and admiration for her heroic actions on the battlefield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UhO9K7F3I

True brothers want to make the church into a house of healing for all, including women, no matter where the women come from or how they are wounded. True brothers believe that the name of God, "The Lord our Healer" still applies today and is more important than their own 'advancement' and authority in the Kingdom of God.
False brothers are only concerned with their own authority, controlling women and making extra rules for them that men don't have to obey, and extra sins that men can't be guilty of.

Strong Men, Jon Zens

2011-05-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

Jon Zens has worked since 2001 to help women out of the sex trade and has seen the destruction that patriarchy has wrecked on the lives of women and girls in the Christianity and noted the parallels between them.

He is disturbed by the trend of Neo-Patriarchy that is laying siege against the truth of freedom in Christ. And he has raised his voice along with other men against the abuses he has seen perpetrated in the name of Jesus Christ.

Besides speaking out and having an Internet presence, Jon Zens has written a book called, "No Will of My Own (How Patriarchy Smothers Female Dignity and Personhood)".

There is an article at the link below concerning Jon Zens and his book. And linked in the article is an interview with Cindy and Jocelyn about the book on Blog Talk Radio.
http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2011/05/jon-zens-talks-about-his-new-book-no.html

Thank you, Jon Zens, for being my brother and a brother to those in the sex trade and those oppressed by patriarchy in the 21st century church.

Strong Men, P.C.

2011-05-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Here is another fellow that I'm unsure what his name is. But he has a video on youtube where he is talking about men using the Bible to hurt women. The video is listed under Prophecy Channel, Hence, for this post, the man speaking is dubbed P.C.

Where as I.C. demonstrated his view through anger, you can hear the catch in P.C. voice as he goes through Ephesians 5 and talks about how it has been abused to hurt women. He's imploring men, and a certain man in particular, to not look upon headship the way the present world looks upon headship, but rather look at it from a Roman culture stand point.

P.C. also carries the heart of Jesus for his sisters, being brought to tears over the abuses that his sisters have faced in the name of God. He wants to bring comfort to hurt women and correction to men who don't know how to be brothers and uplift women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVloUiTwdO8&feature=player_embedded

Strong Men, I.C.

2011-05-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, you read it right. I.C. because I don't know his name. But he has a blog and I was made aware of it through Lewis's blog.

A certain fellow by the name of Spencer came to Lewis's blog one day, and was determined to set us all straight on the clear Biblical teaching of female subordination and the need for tactics for fathers to control their rebellious daughters.

I.C. wrote an open letter to Spencer on his own blog, and I'll tell ya. I.C.'s anger and indignation was not unlike Jesus going into the temple with a whip and chasing out the money changers. Jesus said that God's house was to be a house of prayer but men were making it a den of thieves.
This is what is going on in sections of Christianity. There a thieves who are stealing freedom from others. Jesus said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. But the thieves have exchanged the truth for a lie, labeled it 'biblical' and even called it 'clearly scriptural'. And the lie has brought deep bondage into the lives of women.

With the same zeal that Jesus drove out the money changers, I.C. set about to boldly confront a truth exchanger who is seduced by the lies of patriarchy.

The truth exchangers pretend to be brothers, and even in a sense may be Christian brothers. But they are very misled brothers like my sister-in-law's bio brother who didn't know how to be an actual brother. (May 9th post)

I.C.. along with Lewis, knows how to be a true brother, a defender of women against the thieves who are out to steal freedom in Jesus. It's exciting for me to see men who are strong and love women with the love of the Lord rather than with the love of gaining seats of honor for themselves.

You can read I.C.'s open response to Spencer here and take comfort in his zeal for our freedom.
http://incongruouscircumspection.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-open-response-to-spencer.html

Strong Men, Lewis

2011-05-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Most of my readers are familiar with the blog "The Commandments of Men".

The host of this blog is Lewis Wells who had a close encounter with Neo-Patriarchy that has left him shattered. He relates this encounter in his, "The Joke was on Me" Series.

He has received a severe wounding at the hands of supposed 'brothers' in the 'Church' but instead of turning around and wounding others, he has found strength in Jesus Christ and has become a watchman on the wall, warning others against the false doctrines and commandments of men being held up as gospel.

I could say a great deal more but would like to quote one of his commenter's on his "Steadfast Daughters Leaves Me Quivering Once Again" thread.

DoaHF said to him at 12:16 pm on November 22, 2010: "Three cheers, Lewis. Thanks for standing up for us. You didn't have to, and you sure didn't have to care at all after what they did to you, but here you are. You keep us laughing, make us think, and bring us through the hard days. Much love."

Lewis is being a true brother who sees his sisters as valuable and worth defending against men who conspire to use religion to control their women. He wants people, including women, to be free in the love of God and Spirit of Christian brotherhood.

As DoaHF said, he doesn't have to care or stand up for the downtrodden, but he does.

And here is a quote of his that explains his motivation that he has a the top of his blog: "When we become unwilling to risk everything for the sake of the right thing, our salt has lost its savor, and we no longer season our world."

Thank you Lewis, for being salt and a light in the darkness. The light you shine for your brothers and sisters showing them the way out of the darkness of patriarchy is much appreciated.

You are a strong secure man that I can honor and am proud to call brother.

http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/ (link for anyone visiting who hasn't been to his blog yet)