The Saddleback Church and the Case for Women in the Ministry of Teaching and Preaching

 

The Saddleback Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and

the Case for Women in the Ministry of Teaching and Preaching

We enthusiastically salute and strongly support the stand of the Saddleback Church established by Rick Warren for their stand on ordaining women pastors. As a result, the whole church was recently kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention (Perhaps someone should approach Rick Warren about affiliating with the Church of the Nazarene?) last February 2023. See

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2023/february/saddleback-church-southern-baptist-sbc-disfellowship-female.html

 This has been an age-old debate between Christian legalists and Christian core values defenders. I use these terms because the Southern Baptist Convention’s position is completely legalistic and un-Biblical in at least two major ways.

 First, they make mountains out of mole hills. More hermeneutically speaking, they cannot distinguish between the SHOUTS of God and the w-h-i-s-p-e-r-s of God in the Bible. It seems that to them every statement in the Bible has equal value, like allowing women to preach is right there equivalent to any of the Ten Commandments, for example. This mindset is preposterous and very misinformed. To be on the safe non-cultic side we have to let the SHOUTS of God interpret the whispers of God, not the other way around. It’s plain rational thinking.

 Second, they disregard the decidedly male chauvinist culture that made the statement and they completely disregard the rest of that same culture that the early church changed and practiced that allowed women leaders, women apostles and women prophets. They preach to a modern culture insisting on the LETTER of the LAW instead of the SPIRIT of the LAW. Yet these same people refuse to see what Christianity has done to slavery and polygamy, both ALLOWED BY THE LETTER of the LAW but no longer allowed as practice in the NEW CREATION of God which is the church of Christ. Hence, like most legalists, they are adamant about violations of the letter of the law and not the heart of it.  They are like Cain who sacrificed correctly (Genesis 4:7 LXX) but his heart was never right with God (1 John 3:12)

 This brings us to a very important explicit principle from Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5 which these groups of misinformed people always ignore or maybe cannot exegete properly.

These legalists, similar to the infamous Pharisees of Christ’s day, nitpicked on the disciples for disobeying the Sabbath laws. Now note that the Sabbath as explained in the Torah is part of the Ten Commandments, ALL WORK IS PROHIBITED. In the book of Numbers 15:32-36, one was even stoned to death for just “gathering sticks on the Sabbath day”! (Compare that to this thing about women is just mentioned in passing by Paul and we refuse to look at the context and culture.)

Technically, the disciples would be RIGHTLY stoned to death (something that they did to Stephen for alleged “blasphemy”). But what did Jesus do and SAY as a matter of principle????

 First, he cited the case of David violating the law against the “bread of the Presence” which is just outside the Holy of Holies. Second, he cites the “priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless”. So did Christ who is Yahweh change the LAW, meaning God changed his mind? The answer is YES and NO.

YES because the disciples were guilty of violation and yet they are now “guiltless”! NO because Christ is setting a key principle in understanding the Torah IN THE CONTEXT OF the New Creation. In fact, He came to “fulfill the Law and the Prophets”.

There are a hierarchy of laws where some laws pre-empt the other laws. That is a reality in our legal system and a reality in God’s order. In David’s case, hunger and satisfying hunger was a higher principle than maintaining a ritual. Jesus demonstrates here that the law is NOT ABSOLUTE over human need. This is where Christ declares, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27). Besides, when St. Peter declares that believers are "a royal priesthood", does that apply ONLY to men? Was he talking only to men?

Second, Christ also shows that the law is NOT ABSOLUTE over service to God as Christ himself mentioned, “Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?” (Matthew 12:5). The priests who serve God in the temple “necessarily” and “intentionally” violate some rules in order to accomplish the greater preoccupation to serve God, and Christ declares them “guiltless”.

Third and most important, the Lord is teaching the principle of the Law being our baseline for standards of order but he explicitly declared in Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness EXCEEDS that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In this particular event, Christ follows up THAT SAME PRINCIPLE by stating it another way in Matthew 12:7, “if you had known what this means, ‘I desire MERCY, and NOT SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.”  Where sacrifice represent the letter of the law or the legal requirements of the law, mercy is the spirit of Christlikeness that God expects of those who claim to be his followers. What is the point of ALL those Sacrifices in the Torah as it relates to Christ expecting MERCY instead of obedience to the performance of these sacrificial meals? FYI, Mercy is expected BEYOND any sacrifice of thanksgiving or sacrifice of praise, for that matter.

 

“The harvest is plenty but the laborers are few.” These legalists who only look at the LETTER of the Law mean to divide and lessen the testimony of the church with only half the laborers by excluding women, obeying the LESSER law in favor of the more important one. It is similar to the “korban” teaching of Christ (Mark 7:1-13) where the Pharisees ignore one of the Ten Commandments just because their offering has been “korban” or committed to God. This sin of hypocrisy, Christ squarely condemns! We don’t ask you to forget the letter of the Law but Christ himself requires YOU to EXCEED it. Otherwise, “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”! 

“Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their heart is far from me..."
7 

 When people like John MacArthur tell outstanding teachers like Beth Moore  to “go home” we realize that people make mistakes, some BIG, some small, even with the best intentions no one is infallible except Christ Himself.

Yes, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox churches practice the male-only tradition but even they are NOT INFALLIBLE too as PROVEN many times in history.

In conclusion, “It’s just a molehill, use your big foot to step on it”… the Spirit and NOT the Letter….?  Matthew 12:1-8? Are you listening…?

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)”