Category Archives: Practical Theology

From Sexual Ambiguity to Ontological Uncertainty

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Biblical Womanhood, Complementarianism, Egalitarianism, Female in the Image of God, Practical Theology, Submission and Headship, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman

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This post was written as a prelude of sorts to the series Human Sexuality & Redeemed Image-Bearing Series. It is me sharing a little bit of my life experience and how it has fostered in me a particular desire to understand issues regarding human sexuality and female image bearing specifically. It is an explanation of my personal interest in this topic, it is not part of this study per se. But, for any who are interested, it is an opportunity to get an idea of where I am coming from on this issue and why I have made such efforts to understand this topic.

Sexual Ambiguity

Having been raised in a home deeply impacted and driven by a feministic agenda, I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to untangle the subtle strands of what I would call a psychological sexual ambiguity. In the home that I grew up in, there was no clear distinction between male and female. There were, of course, the obvious physical differences, but beyond that differences between the two sexes were neither acknowledged or encouraged. Generally, sexuality was understood to be a matter of sexual practice, and masculinity and femininity were defined in terms of lust and desirability.

My mother had more education, a better job, and made more money than my father did (at least in the early years). For the most part, my father was the more emotionally intuitive parent that often played the role of both mother and father – cooking dinner when he wasn’t working, doing the food shopping on the weekends, attending school meetings, and doing what he could to pull the family together. On the other hand, my mother was a tough, no-nonsense sort of woman that prioritized her career and education. Although she tried, she generally found that childcare, housework, and the domesticated life were frustrating, overwhelming, and boring. 

As a public-school student in the eighties, I was constantly bombarded with the message that girls could do anything boys could do – and probably even better than a boy could do it. Women’s rights, education, and the pay-scale divide between men and women in our country were common topics in literature, curriculum, and in the class-room. Women were tired of being ‘stuck’ with the kids, relegated to second-in-command, and making less money than their male counterparts for the same jobs. The repeated refrain for girls was ‘get your education’ and ‘do whatever you have to do to get a good job.’

The Battle of the Sexes

Marriage and a family were the furthest things from my mind, and being a female seemed to me to mean that I was in a cosmic battle of the sexes. A battle that women had been losing for years – and it was on my generation ‘to right the ship’ and win the war! I think that we were supposed to become the men that our mothers wanted to marry….

Anyhow, after highschool, I enlisted in the army. And after taking the ASVAB test, I was given the option of becoming a chaplain, a police officer, or a fire-fighter. I chose fire-fighting. I had never thought about fire-fighting a day in my life, but I knew that I didn’t like church people or cops – so the choice was easy.

At that time the military had just made a transition in how they were training their fire-fighters – they had adopted the National Fire Protection Standards and built a new multi-military training facility. I was one of the first female recruits to be trained to the new standards. Unexpectedly, I became the first female recruit to complete the training with no interruptions in the training cycle or mandatory restarts. (Most females were not able to complete the arduous physical requirements of the training. Although, from what I understood, there was one experienced professional female firefighter that underwent the training program successfully.)

My success in the training – as well as my easy adjustment to military life- went right along with what I already believed about men and women: there were no real differences between them. For all intents and purposes, on an emotional and mental level, I was sexual ambiguous.

I believed that there was no male or female per se, we were all just people – people with guy-bodies and people with girl-bodies. And, if anyone had asked me if there was a difference between a man and a woman, I would probably have responded by saying that the only real difference was that women were unfairly treated by being underpaid and undervalued. Knowing how audacious I could be back then, I might have even added that as a female firefighter for the Army, I had just won a small but decisive victory in the battle of the sexes.

He Treated Me Like a Lady

However, the Lord had other plans for me.

Around that time, I became a Christian. When I started attending church, I noticed that among church people there seem to be an intentional difference in how men and women behaved. I felt out of place and not really part of this new sexually diverse world. I felt most comfortable in tight fitting jeans, a flannel shirt, and combat boots – not a dress, flower prints, and matching heels. I wasn’t offended by the difference between me and the ‘church girls’ – but I knew that I wasn’t one of them.

After about a year of avoiding people at church, I met my husband (to be). Ironically, he came from a family of fire-fighters. Our earliest conversations were about taking a civil service test for the Boston Fire Department. He was a Christian, respected what I said, and wasn’t insecure about my job in the Reserves as a firefighter.

Most significantly, he was gentlemen. He opened the door for me, helped me take my coat off, and pulled the chair out for me to sit at dinner. Something made him different than all the other men that I had ever known. He never said anything inappropriate and always paid for dinner when we went out (there was no ‘Going Dutch’). In short, he was a man, and he treated me like a lady.

And, much to my own surprise, something about me wanted to ‘be a lady’ when I was with him. I felt bashful when he opened the door for me and happy when he complimented “the red in my hair.” I was free to be quiet when I was with him, free to have strong opinions or free to have no opinion at all. It felt uncomfortable at first (being treated with such deference), but I didn’t want it to stop. And, something deep inside of me knew that I had finally met someone who was (as the song goes) ‘strong enough to be my man.’ It is no wonder that we were married less than six months later.

When I married, I wholeheartedly embraced the role of wife and mother – I was relieved that I didn’t have to prove myself by doing what men did. My husband provided for me to stay home and study the Word, pray, and serve in the church as I desired to do so. I quite happily stayed home! I cooked, cleaned, and enjoyed every minute of it. When I gave birth to my first child, a baby girl, I felt that I had finally discovered what I had been created to be. And all in a moment, there was no more sexual ambiguity. I was a wife and a mother. That is, somehow I had come to understand that I was a woman through and through.

Ontological Uncertainty

In the following years, I read many, many books on being a Christian woman. I listened to as many teachings as I could find on Biblical femininity and sought out mentors and older women to “Titus 2” me. All of this, in the hopes of becoming the woman that God had created me to be. But even though I knew that I was created to be a woman and longed to understand femininity, I still didn’t know exactly what being a woman meant.

All of the teaching on Biblical womanhood that I received could be boiled down to two words: biology and function. I became increasingly convinced that true femininity couldn’t be reduced to merely childbearing and submission. (Although in the Lord, I do believe both of those things are beautiful and fitting in their rightful place and time in a woman’s life). But, as the task of teaching my daughters what it meant to be a woman became more of a priority in my life, my desire to understand true womanhood became more important to me. I wondered, if femininity isn’t primarily biological and functional, what exactly is it?

In other words, I wondered what does it mean to be a woman at a soul level? What does it mean to be a female created in the image of God – distinct from being a male created in the image of God? I wondered, are there any essential-to-nature (dare I say ontological?) differences between men and women – differences that have their foundation in the creation account, are easily perceived throughout the Biblical narrative, culminate in the new creation work of Christ, and are present everywhere in all female-image-bearers in varying degrees regardless of their spiritual state?

And so, it was, that I had moved from a state of sexual ambiguity– to a state of ontological uncertainty. And here we are. The rest of the posts in this series are explaining the truths that have helped me move from a state of ontological uncertainty to a state of sanctified sexuality.

Other Posts in the Human Sexuality & Redeemed Image-Bearing Series:

Introduction

Foundations: Sexuality, Gender, Essence and Ethic

 

Responding Biblically to Power-Players

15 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Christian Love, Discernment, False Teachers, Hypocricy, Practical Theology, Spiritual Warfare, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Church

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“My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” James 5:19-20, ESV

Before we can respond Biblically to power-players in the church, we must be able to recognize power-play for what it is, and we must be able to resist the temptations of reacting to it in an unbiblical manner. In one sense, recognition and resistance is passive response. However, responding Biblically to sin in the church requires more than discerning recognition and passive resistance, it also calls for loving confrontation.

Not every situation in the church is going to warrant confrontation, and in some circumstances, we are not able to confront the problem as directly as we would like. However, when we can, we will do well to help a brother or sister in the Lord turn away from behavior that harms the church and grieves the Holy Spirit. The following are four steps to responding Biblically to power-play in the church.

  1. Take responsibility personally and corporately to deal with sin. The Word admonishes us, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted” (Galatians 6:1 ESV). Of course, we must mind our own ‘p’s and ‘q’s first, but then we must be willing to make efforts to restore a brother or sister caught in sin. This takes prayerful confession of personal sin, humble vulnerability, and genuine love for the person that we are confronting.
  2. Reason frankly with your brother. Leviticus 19:17 says, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.” This verse goes right along with the New Testament admonitions for conflict resolution among believers (See Matthew 18:15-20; Luke 17:3; 2 Thessalonians 3:15). I choose the Leviticus reference for this point because it emphasizes the truth that reasoning frankly with an offending party is a means to preventing bitterness from taking root in our hearts. We really do need to reason with our brothers and sisters when we are attempting to deal with issues of sin. We need to have concrete examples of sin patterns that the Scripture clearly identifies as sin, and then we must be willing to explain our concerns in a logical, sensible CALM manner. The New Testament teaches that ‘reasoning frankly’ with a brother should first be attempted privately and always in a spirit of meekness.
  3. Allow time for the seed of frank reasoning to germinate in the soul of your brother or sister. If after a reasonable amount of time, you see no change of behavior or attitude, the command of Christ requires that we attempt to confront the professing brother or sister again. The second confrontation should be handled as the first, except we are to take another believer with us (See Matthew 18:15-20). This step, of course, will require that we speak to another believer in the congregation about what we are seeing. In and of itself, it is not gossip or slander to talk about this sort of situation with another believer, but we should be careful that we do not use the necessity to share the details of the circumstance with another believer as an opportunity to sin.
  4. If still, the power-broker is unrepentant then we have no choice but to bring the offense to the church. The way in which we do this will differ from church to church. However, it will likely require bringing the situation to the attention of the leadership of the church and following their lead in the specifics of dealing with the situation from this point forward. Lord willing, all of this will ultimately result in the repentance of the erring brother and the return of harmony to the fellowship (Matthew 18:15-20).

It may be that the power-play is an issue within the leadership of the church. That is tacky and complicated. This is not a situation with which I am, personally, unfamiliar. If this is your situation, I want to encourage you – you are not without recourse. There is yet a higher court to which you can appeal. When Abraham appealed to the Lord on behalf of his nephew Lot, he asked, “…Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25 ESV). The obvious answer to his rhetorical question is, “Yes! He certainly will, in His own time and in His way.” Until then, we wait. We wait prayerfully, hopefully, humbly, and with wisdom (Luke 18:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:13; James 3:13-18; 1 Peter 5:10).

I close this post series with a quote from the 1689 London Baptist Confession. This passage was of great consolation to me when over a three-year period my family was tried in the fires of dealing with power-play in church leadership structures. At the height of our difficulty, my husband and I were counseled by our denominational pastor to read Psalm 55, 56, and 57 together each night. For several months we prayerfully read those Psalms, and they were of great comfort to our souls. But it was this quote from the 1689 that God used most to keep us committed to our church family, despite the very real temptation to throw in the towel and give up on the organized church.

“No church members, upon any offence taken by them, having performed their duty required of them towards the person they are offended at, ought to disturb any church-order, or absent themselves from the assemblies of the church, or administration of any ordinances, upon the account of such offence at any of their fellow members, but are to wait upon Christ, in the further proceeding of the church.” (1689 LBC, Chapter 26, Article 13)

This is the last article in a four post series.

Intro to Power-Play in the Church

Part 1: Recognizing the Satanic Strategies of Power-Play

Part 2: Resisting Power-Play in the Church

Part 3: Responding Biblically to Power-Players

Power-Play in the Church

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Practical Theology, Spiritual Warfare

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“But I am among you as the one who serves.” -Our Lord Jesus, as recorded in Luke 22:27

Power-brokers, power-mongers, and power-players run our world. To some degree or another, most of us have come to accept that power-play is just part of living life in a fallen and corrupted world. We anticipate finding power-brokers in politics, business, and educational systems. Many of our industry leaders and elected officials are characterized by avarice, corruption, and the love of power. We know that fallen people crave the esteem and privilege that position and prestige afford them. And, we also know that too many are willing to sell their voice, their bodies or even their souls to experience just a few moments of the exhilarating rush that accompanies the realization that they are the ones to which everyone else is beholden. We realize that for fallen humanity power is like an aphrodisiac that climaxes in the control of circumstances and other people, an elixir that creates the irresistible illusions of preeminence and self-autonomy.

As Christians, we may reluctantly come to terms with the reality that the leadership structures of this fallen and fleeting world are overrun with the corruption of power hungry people. But may we never develop an indifference or come to terms with the problem of power-play in the church – which is to be both a pillar and a defense of the truth (1 Timothy 3:14-16). We must learn to recognize the satanic strategies of power-play, resist the urges to succumb to its temptations, and then respond Biblically to the power-brokers in our churches.

Lest we naively think that power-play in the church is not a problem, we should consider the record of the New Testament. Jesus dealt with it in nearly every interaction that he had with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, as well as, in his interaction with Herod and Pilate. Paul dealt with power-players, power-mongers, and power-brokers regularly– both in his interaction with the unsaved and in the church (e.g., Acts 13:45, 14:19, 22-25, 24:27; 1 Corinthians 1:10-17; 2 Corinthians 11: 20-21; Galatians 1:6-10, 2:4-15; 6:11-13). Peter was a pawn in Herod’s power-play (Acts 12:1-3), almost succumbed to the pressure put on him by the power-brokers in Galatia (Galatians 2:11-14), and yet, he delivers one of the most stinging condemnations of power-mongering in the New Testament (2 Peter 2). John gave instructions to a pastor under his direction on dealing with a power-broker that had joined the church, apparently, one that had some level of authority in the early church (3 John 9-10). Time and space do not allow for us to survey, even briefly, the record of power politics in the established church over the last 1,900 years – it is far too vast. It will suffice to say that there would never have been a Reformation had there not first been a corruption of ecclesiastical power.

However, the Lord calls His church to humble-minded servant leadership. We are not to seek to be served or to seek preeminence. But, instead, the Lord has called us and equipped us to serve others and to pour out our lives for the good of others. For on the night that our Lord was betrayed, he said, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-27 ESV)

Links to the Power-Play in the Church Post Series:

Part 1: Recognizing the Satanic Strategies of Power-Play

Part 2: Resisting Power-Play in the Church

Part 3: Responding Biblically to Power-Players

Forgiveness Empowering Grace

10 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in Practical Theology

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We all know that we MUST forgive those that have hurt us.

The Lord requires that we forgive our enemies; that we forgive the people that have injured us (Matthew 6:14; Colossians 3:13). We must forgive as we are forgiven. That is what we, Christians, believe; that is what we, Christians, pray (Luke 11:4). If we know Christ, and have experienced His forgiveness – we can and we must forgive those that have hurt us.  We can forgive anybody and everybody that has hurt us because of what Christ did on the cross. For the cross is the promise of God that every wrong will be made right; either through the shed blood of His Son Jesus on the cross, or through an eternity of anguish in hell. If we know Christ and have the power of His indwelling presence we can forgive those that have hurt us, no matter what they have done to us, because Christ gives us the ability to do so. This is because forgiveness is an act of grace accomplished by the powerful working of the Spirit of God in our souls. In one sense, it is the most natural thing in the world for a Christian to forgive, for the very One who forgave us is the holy One who indwells us and empowers us to forgive others.

God is perfectly wise, perfectly good, perfectly just and absolutely sovereign. God is even sovereign over the sins that are committed against us and all that results from those sins.  This truth is what enabled Joseph to say to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20a). It is a comforting truth that when evil is intended against us – God intends it for our good. And, it helps us to forgive when we can see that God has sovereign power over all the painful providences of our lives and that He ordains them to the end that He may do us good.

But, what good can come to us from the evil actions of others?

Well, there are many good things that can result from the sins that are committed against us. Although, here I only want to focus on one of those ‘good things’ – the good thing of receiving more of God’s grace. God uses evils committed against us to cause us to seek and receive His grace. Just as the great enemy of our souls intends that all the evil committed against us will cause us to turn away from God in disbelief, God intends the evils committed against us to cause us to recognize our great need for God and His amazing grace. In this way, evils committed against us become a means of grace to us. That is, evil becomes our servant that carries us to God and bids us ask Him that the manifold expressions of His grace would be given to us – His comforting grace, His healing grace, His ‘forgiveness empowering grace.’ 

Since, God’s great purpose in the creation of the universe is to magnify the glory of His grace in the ages to come through us, every opportunity to experience God’s grace is an opportunity glorify God (Ephesians 1:4-7, 2: 5-7). We magnify His grace more fully by drinking of it more deeply. In this way, anything that causes us to realize our need of God’s grace is a very good thing. When we can begin to see the sins that others have committed against us as an opportunity of experiencing more of God’s grace, we are all-the-more empowered to forgive the evil-doers of those sins. This is so, if for no other reason than those same sins become for us a means of receiving God’s grace. So, let’s forgive those that have hurt us, let’s drink deeply of the grace that is ours in Christ our Lord, and let’s magnify the glory of the grace of our great God.