Archive | May, 2013

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the “savior of mothers”, Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal. Semmelweis postulated the theory of washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards. 

Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time, and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands, and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis’s practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist’s research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed. (adapted from Wikipedia)

Ignaz Semmelweiss was right, but he couldn’t convince those around him, at the expense of women in the hospitals served by those who rejected his claims. Semmelweiss was eventually definitively proven right, but not before he lost his grip on sanity. Toward the end, it is said that all he could talk about was his theory on washing hands. The rejection of ideas he knew were true set him on a path of increased obsession with this one thing to the detriment of all other areas of his life. The spiral into insanity when you know the truth but can’t convince others of the truth is one I’ve witnessed before, particularly on the issue of abuse. Once someone starts into that spiral, their accusations become increasingly suspect despite their truth. In particular, I had a student who years later as an adult finally made public accusations against her father, a pastor, of long term physical and sexual abuse while growing up. At first, her allegations seemed too wild for me to believe. Her conservative Christian church rejected her when she brought these things to light and continued to embrace her father and encourage his pastoral ministry. However, her cousin and sister privately confirmed to me much later the truth of her allegations and their similar experience in her home, yet neither of them would ever confirm it publicly. Eventually, my student, then an adult, descended into such psychosis and delusion that those around her wrote off everything she said as the ramblings of a crazy woman.

I’ve read much of late encouraging believers not to give into bitterness or anger when their concerns about abuse are dismissed. I have been tempted to give into bitterness and anger personally, and my particular experiences in past churches are not nearly as serious as others have experienced. I draw on the sovereignty of God to comfort me, also reminding myself that it is ultimately His job to purify His Church of abuse within its borders. Yet we can not separate our need to self-regulate to not sin in the midst of injustice with the equally important command to stop injustice. While we must not descend into a bitter rage ourselves, God also commands that we not put stumblingblocks in front of others that contribute to them descending into their own. As much as we should not fornicate, murder, cheat someone out of money, or allow a child to starve to death on our doorstep, we must be committed to ending injustice against abuse victims. Scripture doesn’t give us any wiggle room on this.

Isaiah 1:13-17 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts  my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression;bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. 

Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Finally, I want to emphasize one word of wisdom that I haven’t heard much in discussion of allegations by victims of abuse. We often hear Proverbs 18:17, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” But the chapter before teaches us this wisdom.

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Proverbs 17:28

Proverbs 18:17 really only applies to someone who is willing to be publicly examined. Those who are not willing to be publicly examined can’t claim it for themselves. In that case, silence in the face of accusations should not be assumed to indicate wisdom. 

Finally, a part of ending injustice includes hope for the accused as well as the accuser. A strong gospel hope allows us, even when we are close to someone accused, to walk with them, not in hiding from their mistakes or outright sins, but in exposing their sin and walking in the light as Paul exhorts in Ephesians 5. This is the pastor who walks with the accused abuser into the police precinct and pastors him to be brutally honest about his abuse, accepting the full range of earthly consequences for his sins. This is also the pastor who mishandled abuse situations who then humbly admits his mistakes publicly, repairs what he can with those he wounded, and works to change both his and others’ direction for the future. God calls each and every one of us to the mentality “The Buck Stops Here.” May we all EAT IT when we hit up against injustice toward ourselves or others, believing the gospel frees us from self-justification, defensiveness, and circling the wagons.

If you have been accused, do not choose defensiveness. Defensiveness is for people who DON’T UNDERSTAND THE GOSPEL. The gospel completely frees us from a need to circle the wagons and defend ourselves. God circled the wagons 2000 years ago and accepted Christ’s perfect sacrifice in the middle. Then He smashed the wagons. We don’t need them anymore. God has freed you from your need for self-protection.

This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.   Joe Paterno

A lawsuit was filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries in October, 2012 with three plaintiffs. Last week, an amendment was made to the lawsuit raising the number of plaintiffs to eleven. The allegations, particularly those in the latest amendment, are deeply disturbing. Yet, at this point they remain allegations, which is distinctly different than legally established fact. In the last few days, a judge dismissed most of the suit over the statute of limitations. In such suits, victims must file within three years of reaching the age 18, and only two of the plaintiffs meet that criteria. This is a big issue in conservative evangelicalism, especially the reformed community. The way reformed leaders address it reflects on our belief system. God help us do a better job of stewarding the forum we are given with these issues.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7 ESV)

Many have argued (correctly) that all brands of religion and even life in general are sullied by child abuse. There are lots of sin bombs in life we could address, but it’s the one in your own backyard that has the greatest likelihood of wounding you or those to whom you are most obligated to advocate for. This is a bomb, planted firmly in the backyard of the house that is the young, restless, and reformed movement of which I am a part. It has already torn apart much of the reputation that was built over the last few years. There are precious doctrines attached to the groups under accusation right now. We have lost much when we chose silence over transparency in addressing these things. And we stand to lose much more if things don’t change in how our community addresses these things.

I have first hand experience with ministries recently accused of abuse. Some of those ministries provided much needed structure at a time when I lacked self worth, self confidence, or any kind of personal security. Yet, a ministry/person can do both – help one person while destroying another. What disturbs me deeply now is that I knew people who were abused (I was actually very good friends with a few), but both they and I somehow felt that whatever they got at the hands of the conservative religious authorities in their life, no matter how unreasonable or harsh it seemed to us, must be OK. Why? Because the authorities around us who weren’t the abusers seemed OK with the ones who were. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” I don’t really care to speak to abusers in this post. Instead, it is the SILENCE by others that I want to address.

In particular, while working at a respected Christian camp, I had a camper share with me (in repentance, trying to repair her reputation with me), that she didn’t mean to have sex with the guy with whom she got caught. She hadn’t dressed provocatively. In fact, she had had holes in her undergarments when their sexual encounter took place. Obviously, luring him into sex wasn’t on her mind when she got dressed that day. And she had even protested and said no. But at some point, because of her moral weakness, she gave in. At least, we both kind of accepted that view of it, which was the view projected onto her by her church authority structure. She was brought up for church discipline with the guy. She “repented” and was left with a reputation she worked hard to repair. Another friend was cornered by a youth pastor in a room with no one else around, who then proceeded to masturbate in front of her. She told a female adult authority in the church, who told her she must have been dressed inappropriately and that it was her fault. She never mentioned it again until she told me decades later.

Now, with the maturity of an adult living in the real world, I think of my camper’s story with a cold knot in my stomach. She was caught by surprise and embarrassed by the poor condition of her dress that day. She said NO. She was underage. This wasn’t sexual immorality. It was rape. But her sexual abuse from her past and the acceptance of it all as her fault by the authorities in her life (her parents, her Christian school, her pastor, camp counselors, and so forth) led her to truly believe it was her fault, as did I. She was CHURCH DISCIPLINED for it.

Conservative churches, especially during the 80’s and 90’s seemed to have this as their general M.O. When children who were physically and sexually abused by parents or leaders in a conservative church came forward with allegations, they were often told it was their fault. They were often the ones held accountable while the authorities in their lives who either did the abuse or allowed others to do it were not. Rarely was law enforcement involved.

As I’ve written in other posts, authorities are ALWAYS the one held to the higher standard, the greater accountability. They are called to restrain their authority and use their power as a force for the abused and oppressed. Many leaders in conservative evangelicalism have not held authorities to the higher standard. In fact, the exact opposite seems the norm (and I deliberately chose the word “seems” because I do not know what conversations among leaders are going on in the background, and I am hopeful that genuine change on this issue is taking root privately).

I pray for leaders who will teach the value of authentic REPENTANCE by other leaders who dropped the ball and made the wrong choice when confronted with these situations in their congregations. Just REPENT. Just say, “Yes, under my watch, this specific thing did happen. It was wrong. And I did not protect the widow and orphan. I participated in injustice. And I am very sorry.” Then CHANGE. Do things differently. Repair what you can. You know what?! That very gospel we talk about so much empowers us to face our sin head on, to admit it, to lay it at the foot of the cross, and to walk away changed. It equips you and I to get up and go in a new direction without shame. It equips us to ADDRESS THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS. Christ’s death frees us from the chains of our own sins. And His life applied to our account lets us walk forward in the truest righteousness of all–HIS!

Christian leader, if you happen to be reading this, take up the call in Isaiah 1 that is echoed in James. Right wrongs. Correct injustice. Protect widows and orphans. Defuse the bomb in your own backyard before it blows up in your face. The true gospel really does equip us to do this!

I have thought for years of doing a series on hard passages in the Bible in regards to women and gender issues. But other things distracted me, and I didn’t take the time to follow through. I’m feeling suitably inspired to tackle it now. Last week, I addressed some passages from the Old Testament. Today I’m thinking about 1 Timothy 2.

11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.

As I mentioned in my last post on this subject, I don’t write as an authority for others. This series on understanding Scripture reflects how the Spirit has convicted me through the Word. And I can’t convict you. But if this study for myself is helpful to others, then that is great. Ultimately, each of us needs to wrestle with the Spirit and the Word on our own before personal conviction really settles in.

I certainly can not do this passage from I Timothy justice in a single blog post. I will deal right now only with verse 12 – Paul not allowing a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. There are two major ways to approach I Timothy 2. One way does not view the Bible as a connected, coherent whole. In this view, Paul is instructing in something new that contradicts previous passages in Scripture and is relative to only the particular context in which Paul is teaching. This view would limit our ability to extrapolate from this passage to our modern context. The other view reflects my personal conviction about Scripture as a connected, coherent whole in which each progression in God’s story reflects on both the past and the future. In this view, Paul was reinforcing something long believed and taught from Scripture which is still relevant for today, in which case we can use the rest of Scripture to reflect on this verse so that we know what he does and does not mean. Since Paul in this passage refers back to Genesis, it seems that he is presenting this as something that reflects a coherent, consistent teaching from Scripture.

In this second view, the Bible is the best commentary on what this passage does and does not mean. When I survey Scripture for women affirmed by God, I note a variety of situations that give me helpful perspective.

*Deborah was one of the judges of Israel. Judges exercised martial and military leadership in Israel before the kings. They were distinct from the prophets, who spoke the words of God according to Deut. 18:18.

*Junias is mentioned in Romans 16:7.

7 Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

Outstanding as used in the Greek could mean “a well-known apostle” or someone “well known by the apostles.” Regardless, the office of apostles in the New Testament seems distinct from that of the elders which are established later in the New Testament. Prophets (and prophetesses) in the Old Testament and Apostles in the New Testament spoke God’s words before the cannon of Scripture was set. A lot of debate remains in the Church today about whether the office of Apostle remains a position in the Church. My personal conviction is that this office ended after the canon of Scripture was set. Regardless, Junias is not clearly an apostle, though she was at least well known among them. 

*Priscilla discipled men, in cohort with her husband.

Acts 18:26 and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

*Phoebe is a deacon according to Romans 16:1.

I keep those women in mind when reflecting on I Timothy 2.

The Greek word for exercise authority in v. 12 is only used in this one instance in the New Testament. The Greek word for teach is used many times, and it pretty much means teach. This passage can not mean that women were not to speak in church at all since Acts 18:26, 21:9, and 1 Corinthians 11:5 make it clear that women did speak in church settings without rebuke. This verse can’t mean that women shouldn’t informally teach/disciple, because Priscilla clearly did that. It can’t mean that a woman is never to be a civil authority, for then Deborah would have been in violation of this passage. 1 Timothy 2:12 does mean something, though. If I write it off entirely, I stand to lose a lot more in Scripture than I gain in my view of women’s rights.

The words teach and exercise authority in verse 12 seem to modify each other. This passage is written in the context of New Testament church authority structures, and the instructions in I Timothy 2 bleed neatly into those on elders and deacons in I Timothy 3. In that context, the idea of this being about teaching with authority makes sense. When I let Scripture give commentary on itself, it seems to me that this restriction on “teaching or exercising authority” reflects on the authoritative church office of elder. That view makes sense when I read the flow of the passage starting in chapter 2 verse 12 on into chapter 3.

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.

(Overseer/elder is one office spoken of in interchangeable terms in the New Testament.)

My views of church authority structures play into the application here. By conviction, I follow a presbyterian view of church authority, where elders are those with teaching authority and deacons are those called to serve the needs of the Church.

In many conservative churches with a presbyterian type elder/deacon authority structure, women do anything a qualified, non-ordained man can do in the church. And that is my conviction. Personally, I’ve been asked by the elders at my last two churches to teach classes of adult men and women. I am glad to do that though I don’t seek it out on my own. I see a clear difference in facilitating learning in either Sunday school or at the community college where I teach math and the authoritative position of elder that Paul discusses in I Timothy 3. Women teach Sunday School, lead prayer, read Scripture, lead worship, and so forth, and this is consistent with the roles women played in the Church throughout Scripture. By conviction, I do not seek the office of elder which I believe is reserved for qualified males. I do not feel threatened or diminished by this limitation. I think that there is something good and beautiful about the distinctions Scripture makes by way of gender (when we do not overstep and/or add to these limitations).

I hope something there is helpful to you. Again, this is how the Spirit has worked in my heart as I’ve wrestled with Him in the Word to understand and apply Scripture. I trust God will give you confidence as you wrestle with Him through your own prayer and Bible study.

My boys are ages 6 and 8 now. I am snuggled up with one on my recliner, barely able to type these words. He has his baby blanket around his shoulders as he watches cartoons. I don’t want him to move, because he is warm and sweet and still so very much my baby. I think that across the country, a 32 year old woman was just freed from ten years of captivity, and as of today, her mother still has not seen her. Her missing persons case was closed a few years after her disappearance, and apparently no one cared enough to keep looking for her. I read her story last night and was haunted through my sleep.

Motherhood is mysterious to me. I love it more than anything I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve had the opportunity to do some pretty cool things. Swimming with dolphins is a close second, but even my hard to explain love for whales doesn’t compare to the joy I receive snuggling with my little boys at bedtime. Motherhood is an incredible gift – that comes with incredible obligations. The obligation apart from loving the gift is crushing. 2 Timothy 3:3 mentions those who are heartless (ESV) or without natural affections (KJV). Without the affection that comes naturally to so many women, great, heartless evil can be perpetuated on vulnerable children by the one who should be nurturing them. I’ve talked about Daddy Issues on this blog a number of time. Both men and women struggle throughout life with baggage thrust upon them by fathers who condemned or abandoned instead of loved and nurtured. But Mommy Issues can not be over emphasized either. The love of a mother goes far and deep toward helping our children learn to trust and bond. And a mother’s abandonment or condemnation can wound a child with a pain that lasts throughout their lives.

I love that God uses the imagery of a mother and her child in Isaiah 49 to reinforce His love for His children. Her compassion for her children is a close example of God’s compassion and faithfulness to His. But even she may forget her children. God, however, will not. He gives profound value to the love of a mother, but He sets Himself up as One of even greater love and commitment to His children. It is beautiful to me as a mother, and it is even more beautiful to me as God’s child.

13 Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. 14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,  that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

My boys are ages 6 and 8 now. I feel that I am right in the middle of the best years of motherhood. The earlier years with my boys were filled with the stress of just keeping them alive. Nurture was often boiled down to feeding and carrying infants. Now, though I still help with food and safety, I nurture their souls. We communicate more and more. Our conversations grow deeper as they navigate new social situations at school and other places. I can teach them more of God’s character, and they are at the age where they will remember for a lifetime the conversations we have and the example I set.

The obligations of motherhood are staggering. This morning, my 8 year old woke me out of a sound sleep before anyone else in the house was up to let me know there was a spider in his bed. And, so, Mother’s Day begins. Obligation after obligation. The drip, drip, drip of childhood need could feel like torture. But those obligations are wrapped up in a profound love, a natural affection, for these ones who have constant needs. And that love is the oil that keeps the machine of motherhood running in my life. Motherhood, like all the Law and the Prophets, boils down to the Greatest Command.

Matthew 22:36-40 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

*If you are hurting this Mothers’ Day weekend, here is a beautiful post from my sweet friend, Bina, on weeping with those who weep at this time of year.*

Note to self when starting a movement I don’t know I’m starting – don’t offer up a new name for it. If I had it to do all over again, I would title the article that lit the match that lit the fuse that started the fire last week A New Wave OF Complementarians.  Oh, wait.  I did title it that way.  Well, somebody shortened it to New Wave Complementarianism, and that seems to have stuck.  None of us involved in the original conversation could have foreseen how the conversation would take off in the blogosphere. Call it what you want. New Wave Complementarianism. Or a new wave washing over complementarianism. Or simply conservative evangelicals discussing the Bible and gender. In the end, I see it simply as an important conversation about Biblical Christianity when it comes to the ways we portray the interplay of two genders in Scripture created to reflect the image of God.

Just to be clear, despite the title of this post, I won’t be starting any movements anytime soon, and I didn’t start whatever movement lit fire these last weeks. Someone in a blog called it a brand new movement just born in the last month, but that isn’t what this conversation is at all. Really, it’s a bunch of men and women wrestling through very old words and ideas – particularly the interplay between the words biblical and womanhood (with an emphasis on the meaning of the word desire in Gen. 3:16). At least on my blog, we’ve been talking about this for years. I wrote my first article mentioning my own wrestling through some of these ideas back in 2008/2009. I got a lot of comments on those articles, and the conversation has continued for 4 or 5 years. Though I didn’t intend to spark a movement, I do very much hope there will continue to be movement on this subject. If nothing else, the unexpected response to my thoughts would seem to indicate this is an area of dissonance for many.

If something did get started the last few weeks that remains a part of the conversation long term, my conviction is that the Spirit, not me, started it through His Word. I’m reminded of the words of Gamaliel in Acts 5.

38 “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

Now, I’m not likening myself or this “movement” to the spread of the early Church in Acts, but the principle that Gamaliel puts out in his fallen state still rings true with my belief system. If this discussion on the issue of gender roles is from God, then He’ll keep the conversation going for the good of His Church in providential ways.

I’ve heard two criticisms/concerns that I want to address.

1) This conversation presents a slippery slope toward compromise on gender issues. I’ve heard the slippery slope criticism for years about various things, such as that listening to Steve Green’s music, going to a conference by John Piper, or reading a theological book written by a Catholic priest may all lead to an ecumenism that disregards fundamental doctrines. The problem with the general slippery slope to compromise argument is that it seems, at least to me, to violate some principles long loved in the reformed church. I’m thinking particularly of Semper Reformanda – the Reformed Church is always reforming. I use that phrase as Dr. Michael Horton does in this article at Ligonier.

“…here is (the) whole phrase: ‘The church is reformed and always [in need of] being reformed according to the Word of God.’ The verb is passive: the church is not ‘always reforming,’ but is ‘always being reformed’ by the Spirit of God through the Word.”

The Spirit is regularly moving to realign the Church with the Word of God. The Church isn’t to reform according to culture but according to the Word. And it is good and healthy to remember that we all need to be constantly re-examining ourselves against the Word as the SPIRIT convicts. In my past experience, the “slippery slope” wasn’t toward compromise but toward correction in light of Scripture. And that’s a slope I need the Spirit to push me down quite often if the end result is greater conformity to the Word.

2) The other criticism I want to address is that I should have written more on Ephesians 5 and Genesis 2, rather than centering my points in last week’s article around woman created in the image of God in Genesis 1. As I read those criticisms, I remembered that often I have read much less of those of whom I am critical than those with whom I positively resonate. Perhaps that is the case with these criticisms as well, since they miss that I wrote extensively on both Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5 in The Gospel-Centered Woman (reviewed at The Gospel Coalition here). Plus, I wrote an entire book on Ephesians, including THREE chapters on Ephesians 5:22-33 (reviewed at The Gospel Coalition here). I have written extensively on Genesis 2 on this blog and, all day every day, keep a link to an important post on Genesis 2 under the Posts that Struck a Nerve Heading. So I feel comfortable that I have comprehensively addressed both Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5 with anyone who is a long time reader here. 

One thing that has continually disturbed me through the years I’ve been having informal conversations with various readers on this blog is the number of women who contact me privately over and over again with thanks to me for expressing what they DO NOT FEEL SAFE TO SAY in their context. They believe that they will be labeled as divisive, nagging gossips if they express their concerns. And, in my experience, that is a legitimate fear in SOME complementarian realms. Some leaders may be offended by that – “Well, I’m certainly a safe person for women to express their concerns to.” Maybe you are. But there are enough women who consider themselves complementarians expressing such concern for each of us to seriously consider whether our tone contributes to their discomfort being vocal in their context. Closer to home, it may benefit some leaders to sit down with women in their context and make clear that they can speak freely, that you NEED them to speak freely, and that you will not label them immature or divisive for expressing their concerns.

From this point on, I’m putting a personal moratorium (we’ll see how long that lasts) on using the word complementarian on this blog. I alienate readers when I use that word, and not because they are egalitarian. The average female reader of this blog is not wrapped up in the words complementarian and egalitarian, and those of us who get caught up in those words likely miss the heart of the majority of hurting women on the ground. Blogosphere debates don’t fit my idea of ministry, and I don’t think they meet the needs of the women to whom those of us who host such blogs most minister. My heart for women is summarized in The Gospel-Centered Woman: Understanding Biblical Womanhood through the Lens of the Gospel, and I didn’t use the word complementarian in it at all.

I will conclude this post as I did the one that stoked the low burning embers from the last few years into a roaring blaze. Perhaps after talking about complementarianism for a bit, we can all back off from conversations ABOUT gender and just go BE our genders, reflecting the character of our Creator as we are redeemed and restored to be like Him once more. That remains my heart on this issue.

The Old Testament gets a bad rap among progressive Christians at times. Some refer to its texts revealing harsh treatment of women as “texts of terror.” They focus on things that had great relevance for OT culture at the time, such as sleeping in a separate tent during a woman’s period, from the perspective of our modern culture with all its medical and sanitary advances. Then, without carefully connecting the lines, broad conclusions are made about misogyny in the Bible. Some say that since nobody agrees exactly on what the Bible commands to women and nobody is able to keep it all anyway, the Bible must be bad, or misogynist, or irrelevant. In that view, the Bible is no longer God’s revelation of Himself to His people through the Spirit’s inspiration of the authors (2 Peter 1:20-21). And any conclusion drawn from it by people who believe the Spirit did inspire it are suspect.

I want to deal with a few of the issues that get a particularly negative reaction and respond with how I’ve reconciled these in my own heart. Note – this is how I’ve reconciled these with the Spirit in my own heart. Many conservatives seem in practice to not have a strong confidence in the Spirit’s ability to convict anyone but themselves. As a core belief of mine, I don’t believe God gives ME the responsibility of convicting you. But I’m glad to share how He’s moving in my heart, and I trust the Holy Spirit to guide you if you decide to engage Him and His Word and wrestle with these on your own.

So here goes.

1) Judges 19’s account of a Levite cutting up his concubine after she is raped and abused by strangers in the city. Wow, this one is a horrible, horrible story. Which is the entire point. This chapter opens with the words, “In those days, Israel had no king.” That’s the point of the entire book of Judges. They had no king, and the very last words of the book of Judges is that this lack of a king resulted in everyone doing what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). Judges describes over and over again the weaknesses of both the system of judges and the law previously given to Moses. It points again and again to Israel’s need for a king, but later we see that the earthly kings were no better, and with few exceptions, everyone, including those kings, continued to do what was right in their own eyes. They all needed a perfect King who would give the perfect standard of righteousness. They needed King Jesus.

The terror of the story of Judges 19 is rooted in a people deciding, apart from God’s standard of righteousness, what was right in their own eyes. There is no justification for using Judges 19 as something to make us fear the Bible! God certainly never commanded this type of abuse. This is a description, along with the story in Judges 11 of the daughter of Jephthah who seemed to be sacrificed in a misguided vow to God, of how bad things got as Israel moved away from God. It serves too as a warning to us in modern day Christianity. When we make ourselves the final say in what is and is not right apart from the Word, we are open to monumental blindspots. The history of Christianity from the Crusades to slavery has shown our own blindspots again and again.

2) Leviticus 15’s instructions for women who are on their menstrual cycle. The interesting thing which I never hear mentioned in this discussion is that the first half of the chapter discusses similar requirements for men with a discharge of some type of bodily fluid. The implication I keep hearing is that somehow the Law was biased against women on this issue, declaring them unclean simply because they are having their period. However, if you approach Scripture without a predisposition to be suspicious of it on how it speaks toward women, a different image emerges. This is a passage simply about sanitation. Frankly, I’m very thankful for the sanitary advances we’ve made for both men and women discharging bodily fluid (which is a weird way to say it, but that’s how this chapter refers to it). They didn’t have latex gloves or those little protective pads that retirement homes sometimes use to cover beds or chairs. And they certainly didn’t have Always, Tampax, or anything even remotely equivalent. Plus, they didn’t live in homes with secure doorways to protect them from animals following the scent of blood. It was in everyone’s best interest, male and female, to have clear guidelines on what could and could not be done during the time of a woman’s cycle so that the remainder of the month was not full of the types of diseases and consequences that would come in that harsh environment if blood or other types of discharges were not wisely handled. And remember, this chapter includes SIMILAR INSTRUCTIONS FOR MEN.

This speaks to a function of the law that we often forget. Remember that the Law came at the dawn of civilization, and at that point, civilization was not very civilized. These men and women had no police, no courts, no OSHA, no medical establishment, and so forth, and I respect the rigid safeguards and weird limitations on a people struggling to figure out the basics of life in a broken world on their own. Which leads to the 3rd example.

3) Deuteronomy 22’s instructions for a rapist to marry the woman he raped. Again, remember that civilization was not very civilized at this point. The common practice outside of the law for a woman who was raped was that she was killed by her family because of the shame (a practice still used in some cultures). If she was not killed, she had to live in shame with no options for a future life with a family that was accepted in her culture. She likely could only support herself through future prostitution. Exodus 22:16 – 17 gives similar instructions for the case of a man seducing a woman.

Again, presuppositions against Scripture as a misogynist text have caused some to read these instructions in the worst possible light. But I look at cultures throughout the world, including our own, in which many men still see sexual conquest as a game with no consequences for themselves, hearts hardened to the harm put upon the one they seduced. This law in Deuteronomy gave the woman in this situation a path to a respectable life in her culture. And this law held the man to the consequences he created in his sin against this woman. He had to pay her father a dowry worthy of the woman he violated, and he could not divorce her all the days of his life. He was required to remove the shame from her and restore her to a position of respectability in her culture. When you look at it from that perspective, there is much beauty in this law for a woman so violated in a culture that had NO safeguards for her otherwise.

Some of that may or may not be helpful to you as you wrestle through Scripture on your own. Frankly, after struggling through, in particular, the law that commanded the rapist to marry the woman that he raped, I was blessed and moved deeply as the Spirit revealed His heart to me in this instruction. These laws presented a path to free the woman from the shame cast upon her in her culture. The guy was forced to value what he took indiscriminately. I am thankful to live in a culture today that doesn’t cast upon a woman (at least not as much) the same shame and condemnation that was the norm in Old Testament times and is STILL the norm in certain parts of the world. And I am thankful that God pressed upon His people a path for a woman so abused that did not just give her in marriage but required a sizable dowery for the privilege of marrying her. 

If you do have texts that cause you deep concern, I strongly encourage you to wrestle with the texts in prayer with the Holy Spirit. Don’t listen to a campaign against the Spirit and the Word that labels the Old Testament as misogyny to be discarded. Jesus says very clearly in Matthew 5:17 that He didn’t come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. The Law pointed us ultimately to our need for Christ. And when the fullness of time was come, God sent Jesus in the flesh to us, to live the Law perfectly, fulfill it, and free us from its instructions to a group of fallen men and women that needed the most basic level of instructions to survive and build a civilization. Jesus loved this Law. You never see Him disparaging it or demeaning it. And NO ONE accuses Him of misogyny. God in the flesh who loved women and interacted with them in compassionate ways respecting their dignity also loved the law and fulfilled it perfectly. We can not write off the Law as misogynist without also tainting Jesus. I encourage anyone struggling with these topics to stay engaged with the Spirit and the Word, believing in faith that God is good, and He is good to us through His Word.

*The Gospel-Centered Woman: Understanding Biblical Womanhood through the Lens of the Gospeldeals with more principles for understanding the Law and wisdom literature, particularly as they speak toward women.