Women Preaching

God Appointed Ministries

by guest author, Teri King

I'm reminded of a particular thing (among many others) that happened to me as a young woman in Christ.  I was a fairly new Christian. God had called me to speak forth His Word.

One of the ways I did that was a free Christian Community Newspaper. Along with that I founded a Christian House I cannot remember the name of. I found an old mansion and with the help of a few Christians who rented rooms in it, we made it into a temporary haven for people who wanted help getting
back into life: the sick, the homeless looking for work, and others. I led a weekly Bible Study. Another person held another weekly study. I ran the place with zero income.  We survived on donations.  I had a small team of helpers.

We survived on donations from everywhere.  Some came through the free paper. Some from various churches including my own.

We set up a list of rules for people including that they had to attend every weekly Bible study and choose a church to attend.  Then we fed them, clothed them, helped them find work, and sent them on their way in a few weeks.  A few found the Lord in the process.

We had a prayer room.  Every Saturday all the Christians were expected to put in 30 minutes in there.  Miracles happened.

We were an astonishing success.  And then the inevitable happened.  Some male decided that a woman could not "Shepherd" a group of people.  My church decided that they would take authority over me and wrested the ministry from me.  I was too unknowledgeable about these things to know what to do, how to respond.  Had no idea that I didn't have to give it to them. That was a later revelation.

The upshot is that they took a thriving anointed ministry that the community was supporting (hospitals, police dept., even Salvation Army sent us people), and killed it in less than a year.

Now I see that this was a great loss to the community in general as well as Christendom.  This is just one thing that the "doctrine" of male only leadership can do and has done many more times than is publicly known.

Now I weep over it on occasion.  If only I had known then what I know now. But that was then not now.  What Christianity lost by the destruction of my ministry then and so many others like it, cannot be fully known. Oh yes, we say that we are NOT irreplaceable, and that someone else would come along and do the same thing to cover the need.  But no one did, not here.

And yes, I've moved on to other forms of ministry.  Much valuable information has been learned from those experiences and God has worked it all out to good for me.  But occasionally I wonder who fell through the cracks then because that ministry was no longer anointedly available to them.  Anointing is much more important than some realize.

So I wonder, how many God appointed ministries has Christendom violated through the years with our "pet doctrines."  And how many times has God had to then look for others willing, and how many of them have we tromped on. How many of God's anointed ones has Christendom wounded?

Gender Accurate Bible Blog

Thinking a place is needed for providing accurate and non-inflammatory information about the TNIV and other gender accurate bibles, I've created a blog at http://www.genderaccuratebible.com for that purpose. I've invited several translators, linguists and language scholars, and will be inviting more, to be regular contributiors to the blog.

It is already getting good traffic and links from other blogs. Thanks for your help in making its existence known.

Focus On The Family TNIV Response

Following up on my previous post about the Focus on The Family radio broadcast featuring Wayne Grudem lambasting the TNIV:

Pastor Dorcas George, on her blog, tells why she wrote to Focus On The Family and shares the response she received.  I think you'll want to read it. She begins, about the broadcast:

I was dismayed at the tone, and the fact that while Dobson admits there are differing views from "reputable Christian people," no attempt whatsoever was made to allow any sort of discussion on this admittedly "controversial" topic. (How I wish people would stop calling this Bible translation "gender neutral." I have one, and I assure you it is no such thing.)

I wrote FOTF expressing my concern and suggesting they have someone from Zondervan on the program as well. Dr. Stan Gundry perhaps?

To read the rest of her comments, and the response she received from Focus On The Family, click here.

Being Called

Those who oppose women preaching range from the obsessed and rabid who warn that women preaching is evil and dangerous to those who with gentle dismissal explain, without realizing they are being patronizing and arrogant, that there are so many opportunities in the church--why not just do something else.

But, they have no idea, no conception of the torment experienced by the one gifted and bidden to preach, who is prevented or who does not go and do it.

I like the way Kenneth Aveiris Sr. put it:

These women, even as they struggle today, even as they uttered the words "Yes Lord!", knew what Jeremiah once said. . .they learned that to refuse to preach is to experience a fire in one's bones that can be quenched by nothing less than faithful, obedient preaching.

Why We're Here: Colloquium Paper

"Why We're Here," by Patricia Gundry, the opening paper at the October 1984 Evangelical Colloquium on Women and the Bible, held at Oakbrook, Illinois, from the book Women, Authority & The Bible, edited by Alvera Mickelsen, published by InterVarsity Press, copyright 1986

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader software (available for free download)to open and read the PDF file below.

Download pat_gundry_why_were_here.pdf

Dobson/Grudem/Gundry on the TNIV

Check out Wayne Lehman's posting about James Dobson's radio broadcast featuring Wayne Grudem attacking the TNIV Bible translation, and Stan Gundry's written response on the Better Bibles Blog:

Gundry responds to Grudem and Focus on the Family
                         
"We blogged last week about the two broadcasts of Focus on the Family in which Wayne Grudem was the guest and continued his attacks on the TNIV. (You can download the broadcasts for free in MP3 format or order a CD from FOTF.) There was no opportunity given on either FOTF broadcast for anyone to response to the accusations against the TNIV made by Dr. Grudem. In this post Dr. Stan Gundry, who was one of my professors in Bible school, responds." [I'm not finding a live link for that] or

To continue reading: Gundry responds to Grudem and Focus on the Family click here.

To visit Focus On The Family's broadcast archives, to listen to the Grudem broadcasts in Real Audio or Windows Media formats click here. The broadcasts are listed in the archives as The Problem With The TNIV part 1 (broadcast on 10/26/05) and The Problem With The TNIV part 2 (broadcast on 10/27/05).