An Excellent Woman (Proverbs 31)

For those more traditional Christians who believe it is unwise for a woman/wife to work outside of the home, here are few verses from Proverbs 31 giving qualities of an excellent or virtuous woman:

“She is like merchant ships; She brings her food from afar.” (v. 14)

“She considers a field and buys it; From her earnings she plants a vineyard.” (v. 16)

“She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies belts to the tradesmen.” (v. 24)

"Your Body is a Temple"

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

One of the problems with English translations of this verse is that our language does not differentiate the singular “your” from the plural “your”.

In the Greek of this verse the “your” is plural (ὑμῶν) while “body” (σῶμα) is singular. Paul is here speaking into a group of individuals about their communal body and not to their individual bodies. The same is true in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 6:16.

In no place does Paul (or any other New Testament writer) describe an individual Christian’s body as being a temple. If he had, he would have written “Your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit”.

The only time an individual is referred to as a temple is Jesus whose body is a temple (John 2:19-21; Revelation 21:22). The Church (universal) is also referred to as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27; Romans 12:5; Ephesians 4:12; 5:23; Colossians 1:18). Therefore, the Church (an aggregate of individual believers) = the body of Christ = a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Purpose of Pastors and churches (little 'c')

The purpose of a pastor, whether he or she works with adults, children, or youth, is to equip church members to do the work of the Kingdom of God (Ephesians 4:12). Specifically, the purpose of gathering together at church each week is to prepare believers to go out and be the Church in their daily lives outside of the church building. The work of the Kingdom of God can happen on the weekends in a church building … but it is supposed to grow, spread, and build outside of the church walls during the week. If a church congregation focuses on building itself and not the Kingdom, it is simply either a social club or an insular self-help group. Demographic research shows that what most people look for in a church is recreation. Accordingly, many churches (believe it or not) attempt to accommodate, often to the point where recreation and entertainment becomes an end unto itself. This is the worst case scenario. Only slightly better is the pastor and church that focuses on the spiritual (i.e. the moral) life of members but provide no direction for that personal growth. Remember: in this age, the primary purpose of being moral, of being Christ-like, is to do the work of the Kingdom of God. It may be a cliché, but too often liberal Christians want to pursue Kingdom goals without the morality, while conservative Christians want to pursue morality with limited Kingdom goals. You cannot separate morality from Kingdom purposes. The Kingdom without morality is self-defeating. Morality without the Kingdom is purposeless. You need both. Pastors and churches are there to prepare you to do both.

The Parables of the Talents/Minas - Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-27

Most people have long supposed that Biblical parables that speak of a king going away and coming back again are to be read without question as meaning Jesus going away (in death, resurrection, and exaltation), leaving the Church with spiritual gifts and tasks to perform, and then coming back a long time later to see how they’ve been getting on.

In truth, these parables, in their first century context, were about Yahweh going away at the time of the Exile, having left the Jews with the Torah and the vocation to be the light of the world, and Yahweh now returning.

Jesus saw the coming of Yahweh back to Zion as an event so intimately bound up in his own ministry and its immediately climax that he could speak of the one in terms of the other. 

Brief Info on Elders/Pastors/Bishops

This week I sent a woman a research paper I wrote a decade ago about the various Scriptural basis for women’s complete engagement in the church. In doing so, I was reminded about the function of pastors in a church.

In the Bible, the terms “elder”, “pastor”, and “bishop” are used interchangeably referring to the same function of use in the church (Acts 20:17,28-30; Titus 1:5-9; 1 Peter 5:1-3). The qualifications and work are identical. The purpose of an elder/pastor/bishop is to teach and mentor younger believers in the faith (1 Tim 3:2; 4:13; 5:17; 2 Tim 3:13-17; 4:2; Titus 1:7, 9; 1 Peter 5:1-2) so that the latter can become fully functioning members of the Kingdom of God. In this way, every mature believer teaching sound doctrine can be an elder/pastor/bishop to a younger (less mature) believer. In this way, every Sunday School teacher (teaching children all the way to adults) is a an elder/pastor/bishop.

Here is a bit of controversy: elders/pastors/bishops have no authority over other believers (Matthew 20:25-26; 1 Timothy 2:12; 1 Peter 5:2-3). When in seminary, I used to receive howls of protests from future pastors when I would make the argument that pastors are not supposed to have authority over other believers. I would point to the above Scriptures and several others to no avail. Usually, I would ask them “what authority do elders/pastors/bishops then have?”

Going back to my research paper, I noted that women can be elders/pastors/overseers (1 Timonthy 5:2; Titus 2:3), deacons (Romans 16:1; 1 Timothy 3:11), prophets (Exodus 15:20; Judges 4:4; 2 Kings 22:14; Isaiah 8:3; Luke 2:36), and apostles (Romans 16:7).

Specifically, with regards to being an elder/pastor/bishop, elder women have the same responsibility and purpose as their male counterparts: to mentor young believers in the faith (Titus 2:3-5).

Here are Four Primary Theological Reasons Why Jesus Was Crucified.

1)      Jesus as prophet was performing a prophetic act predicting the destruction of Israel by Rome if Israel did not repent its current mode of being the people of God.

2)      God saw Jesus sinless and selfless obedience unto death as a pleasing act of love and devotion. Therefore, endorsing both his message, his means, and his claim to be the Messiah, God raised Jesus from the dead.

3)      In an act of grace, God chose to resurrect all who repent and follow Jesus, declaring that he would identify all such people with the sinless, self-less, obedient live and death of Jesus.

4)      Jesus intended his followers to use his life, message, and obedient death as an example of what true discipleship and true humanity is like.

Sin vs. Sin-Offering: A Note on 2 Corinthians 5:21

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Something worth noting about this verse. In some of your Bibles you might see a footnote attached to the second use of “sin” in this verse. This is because the the traditional interpretation of the second use of “sin” (harmatia) had usually been translated as “sin”, but now is now more frequently translated as “sin-offering”.

The Greek word harmartia (ἁμαρτία) is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint or LXX) for the Hebrew word chatta'ath (חַטָּאָת) which can be translated as both “sin” and “sin-offering”. The ancient Israelites used chatta'ath for both words. Only context makes the distinction.

A good example of this is found in Leviticus 4:3. “If the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord a bull without defect as a sin offering (chatta'ath) for the sin (chatta'ath) he has committed.”

Again, context is the only way to discern whether the writer is referring to sin or sin-offering.

With regards to 2 Corinthians 5:21, the context suggests that “sin-offering” would be a better translation/interpretation of harmatia.

First, there are a several passages in the Bible that refer to Christ in sacrificial/offering terms

(e.g., Rom. 8:3; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 9:26; 10:12).

Second, it seems unlikely that anyone, let alone Jesus, could become sin. Sin is something one commits. Even the word “sinful” refers to the amount of sin one commits, not that one has sin abounding in them. One commits adultery; one is not adultery itself. One commits thievery; one is not thievery itself. Jesus never sinned so he is not sinful, let alone sin itself.

It seems more likely that Paul intended his audience to understand Jesus in this verse as a sin-offering. Jesus offered himself to God as a sin-less representative of Man willing to sacrifice himself for others.

Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology

The other day I finished reading Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology. Charles L. Campbell (Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei's Postliberal TheologyEssentially, the book is an exploration of the thought, teaching, and context of Frei's use of narrative preaching.The context seems to be the reemergence of biblical preaching by mainline denomination liberals as their move away from subjective religious experience and back towards the centrality of Jesus and the meta-narrative told through the Scriptures. During the 1960s, liberal preachers began to abandon neo-orthodoxy in favor of a more private spirituality and a secular politics, both completely divorced from the Christ event.

Much of the book - literary interpretations of the Bible, the meta-narrative of the Scriptures, refocus on neo-orthodoxy - is "old hat" to me. My studies of Kierkegaard, Mullins, Barth, Brunner, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Moody, Stagg, Buber, and Wright taught me all this long ago. But it is nice to see liberal Christians starting to get it right to some degree.

The most interesting aspect of this book for me was the examination of how people become "Christians" culturally and how they come to believe what they believe. Essentially, the thesis here is that becoming a "Christian" is a process of socialization or enculturation within a particular cultural-linguistic community. One doesn't become a "Christian" by having a "religious experience" but by learning the particular language and set of practices inherent in Christianity, a denomination, and a particular faith tradition. Furthermore, people learn the "meaning" of a scriptural teaching and their way of "interpreting" Scripture by adopting the cultural practices of their faith community, not by drawing upon the sensus literalis.  All of this is really about the practical process of how individuals and community arrive at Biblical interpretation and theology, regardless of accuracy. All of this can be quite depressing to the learned Christian but it really seems to be the way the majority "Christianize" themselves in practice.

Frei is said to argue that the function of the gospels is to render the identity of Jesus. I find this highly questionable but probably only overstated.

I greatly appreciated Frei's assessment that Jesus enacted the way of God in the world as an embodiment of the reign of God. I think this is right on the money. This dips slightly into some of the deeper areas of Scriptural studies involving Jesus self-understanding and prophetic vocation.

I really don't think there are any deeper aspects of Scripture studies than the theology of Job, Roman 1, Deutero-Isaiah, and Jesus' personal understanding of his prophetic vocation.

The book is fairly technical and might be of some interest to preachers. However, it's probably more interesting to those who study preaching. And though I think most evangelicals would find this book uninteresting, liberal and more progressive Christians would find the more practical homiletic parts very useful.

Resurrection, Religion, and the Fear of Death

I've often hear people espouse the theory that humanity created religion in order to deal with the concept of death. This theory goes that people feared the finality of death and conjured up the idea of an afterlife in order to avoid confronting reality. This theory is probably not without some merit. I am sure there are plenty of people in this world who embrace religion merely to escape this fear.

Based upon their burial practices, there is some evidence that the Neanderthals may have believed in an afterlife. Certainly, the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Canaanite religions believed in a spiritual place after death.

Interestingly enough, the Hebrews and ancient Israelites actually did not believe in an afterlife until after the time of the Babylonian Exile (539 BCE). Up until this later era, general Israelite conceptions of death held that the body was created from dust and naturally returned to dust. The body was considered holistic, not being divided into body and spirit but as a unified materialistic substance. A body didn't have a soul (nephesh); a body was a soul. Therefore, the body, created by God originally from nothing, returned to nothing at death. There was no spirit world to which the immortal body was delivered. Sheol was the representation of the grave, a final resting place for all people in dust.

It is not until after the Exile that a resurrection from the dead began to appear in common Jewish religion. It seems that the Jews began to read Exilic Bible passages about Yahweh's promise to reform the nation of Israel from exile (Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37) as a promise of resurrection of the body from death. This was later picked up by Daniel and 2 Maccabees. By the time of Jesus, the vast majority of Jews believed in a resurrection of the dead.

Resurrection of the dead, of course, is vastly different from other religious ideas of an afterlife. Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans believed that the body died and the spirit continued on in some immaterial, spiritual plane of existence. The Greeks in particular believed that the spirit was an immortal form that existed prior to bodily life and continued after bodily death. The spirit was said to be indestructible and thus continued on. This is a far cry from the idea of the creator god, Yahweh, who brings everything into existence out of nothing. The Jews believed that Yahweh would one day bring back to life all of the materials that made up a person, recreating out of dust the body and spirit of man. This seems to have been a unique view among the ancient world. The Greco-Roman worldview found the idea of a resurrection of the body to be foolish, both religiously and philosophically.

Naturally, the concept of the resurrection of the dead remained a matter of faith and theory for the first several centuries of its existence. It wasn't until around the year 30 CE with the resurrection of Jesus that it was proved that, yes, resurrection of the dead was the creator god's intended purpose for humanity.

So the ancient worshippers of Yahweh (the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) did not embrace religion in order to deal with any fear of death in hopes of an afterlife. In terms of mortality, their adherence to a monotheistic, creator god, one who creates out of nothing, was of almost stoic acceptance to a supreme being whose authority to create and utterly destroy was strictly a divine prerogative.

Thankfully, that prerogative is to recreate and offer the resurrection of the body to those willing to accept it.

A Fuller Expression of the Gospel

I was reading today a few articles on N.T. Wright and his view of narrative theology. I came across one article that took him to task for a less than clear conception of penal substitutionary atonement theology. I sympathize with the articles frustration over the ambiguity of Wright's position, though it is obvious that we come down on separate sides when it comes to the validity of the doctrine. Nevertheless, what really struck me about the article was the author's dissatisfaction with Wright's book "Simply Christian" in that it did not explain the basic Gospel -- "Christ died for our sins."

This is a bit of a bugaboo for me. One of my criticisms of most conception of the Gospel message, particularly the more popular understandings, is that they are extremely narrow formulations, completely devoid of the narrative thrust of the Bible. In effect, to say the basic Gospel is "Christ died for our sins" is like saying that WWII was about liberating Poland from Nazi Germany. The saying captures the part but not the whole.

Granted, a full expression of the Gospel (like the one I humbly suggest below) does not fit on a bumper sticker or key ring. If one was to simply reduce the Gospel to its purest essence it would be the following: "The Gospel is the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom of God" (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mark 1:14). This was the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed and would have been readily understood by his Jewish contemporaries.  

However, outside of first century Palestine, we, like the gentiles of the era, depend upon the apostles to flesh out the meaning of this good news and explain it as it related to the story of Israel.

Therefore, the following should be understood: "The Gospel is the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom of God (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mark 1:14), that God has broken definitively into history and the world (Luke 4:18) with power (1Th 1:5) and grace (Acts 20:24; Eph 1:13) in the person and work of Jesus the Christ (1Th 3:2; 2Th 1:8; Gal 1:7; 1Cor 9:12; 2Cor 2:12; Rom 1:9; Phl 1:27), who is the first fruits of the resurrection (1Cor 15:20, 23), bringing Justice (Rom 2:16), Peace (Eph 6:15), and Healing (Matt 4:23; 9:35) to the World and the offer of Salvation (Rom 1:16) for Repentance and Faith (Mark 1:14; Acts 15:7) to all peoples, fulfilling the God’s promise to Abraham (Rom 4:13; Acts 7:17; Gal 3:29) and inaugurating New Creation (Gal 6:15) and the summing up of all things in Christ (Eph 1:10)."

I think this definition offers a far fuller and more accurate expression of the Gospel and how it was encapsulated by Jesus' original audience.

Difficulty with the Translation אֶרֶץ ('erets)

One of the more confusing aspect of the Bible is the translation of the two words: אֶרֶץ ('erets) and γῆ (gē). Both words have a few different translations but are generally translated as either "earth" or "land". Here is where the confusion comes in with translations:

Some of the prophecies of the Old Testament predict that God will wipe a people from the 'erets. If a Bible version translates the word as "earth" then the prophecy is often interpreted as not having occurred (i.e., God has not wiped these particular people from the earth). However, if the word is translated as "land" then it can be showed that these people were expelled  and can be proven that the prophecy was fulfilled.

So because of this little translational detail, there are many Christians who have misinterpreted the Bible and are waiting for particular events that occurred thousands of years ago.

"Sin" in 2 Corinthians 5:21

I've been doing a study on 2 Corinthians 5:21, specifically about the odd saying that "God made him who had no sin [i.e. Jesus] to be sin for us". This verse has traditionally been interpreted to mean that by some mystical transference God turned Jesus into sin during the crucifixion in order to be substitutionally punished for the sins of humanity. However, I had noticed that several of the better, scholarly translations of the New Testament add a footnote to the second occurrence of "sin" (hamartia) in verse 21, indicating that it can be translated as "sin-offering".

The reason for this is that the Old Testament uses the same word (chatta'ath) for both "sin" and "sin-offering". Only contexts determines the usage.

Therefore, we get a translation of Leviticus 4:3: "If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the Lord a young bull without defect as a 'sin offering' [chatta'ath] for the 'sin' [chatta'ath] he has committed."

Now when the Hebrew Bible was translated into the Greek Septuagint (LXX), the translators rendered chatta'ath as hamartia.

With this in mind, the  atonement context of 2 Corinthians 5:21 suggests that Paul intended the second use of hamartia to be understood as "sin-offering" instead of "sin".

It makes more sense to think of God considering the sin-less Jesus an offering for sin than actually somehow turning him into sin.

Two Approaches to Christianity

There are two different practical approaches to being a Christian in today's world. The first approach is the most common and considers the Christian faith as a means by which one gets through this life. This approach generally manifests itself in the view that life is life and the Christian faith helps one get through it with utmost help. There are varieties to this approach. Some choose to follow Christianity but believe it is not so much different than any other religion. They generally follow Christianity because they are culturally conditioned to do so. Other varieties of people truly believe that Christianity is the one true faith, ordained by the creator of the universe, and that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved. Nevertheless, these same people still perceive Christianity as a faith that helps them get through life. For them, Christianity is either a form of "self-help" psychotherapy or a means of "health and wealth" creation. The second approach is radically different. This approach considers the Christian faith as life itself and that the believer is definitively called into a life- and world-changing mission to advance the Kingdom of God and work towards New Creation. The first approach is about improving the self for the purposes of the self. The second approach is about denying the self for the purposes of the overall mission of God in Christ. The first approach is about reading a story. The second approach is about being a character in the story.

On the Translation of the Word אֶרֶץ ('erets)

One of the more confusing aspect of the Bible is the translation of the two words: אֶרֶץ ('erets) and γῆ (gē). Both words have a few different translations but are generally translated as either "earth" or "land". Here is where the confusion comes in with translations:

Some of the prophecies of the Old Testament predict that God will wipe a people from the 'erets. If a Bible version translates the word as "earth" then the prophecy is often interpreted as not having occurred (i.e., God has not wiped these particular people from the earth). However, if the word is translated as "land" then it can be showed that these people were expelled  and can be proven that the prophecy was fulfilled.

So because of this little translational detail, there are many Christians who have misinterpreted the Bible and are waiting for particular events that occurred thousands of years ago.

ELOI ELOI LAMA SABACHTHANI

One of the more significant misunderstandings people have when reading the Gospels is the belief that God the Father rejected or turned his back on Jesus during the crucifixion.

This confusion is largely derived from Jesus' crying out on the cross “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” which is translated, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Mark 15:34).

At first look the idea that Jesus is p...roclaiming that God has forsaken or rejected him seems fairly straightforward. Certainly, everyone at the time believed that Jesus was in this situation because God was not with him (Mark 15:29-32).

However, Jesus' cry of "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI" is actually an Aramaic translation of Psalm 22:1. If you read the entirety of Psalm 22 a far different picture emerges of what is going on in Jesus' situation.

The Psalm tells of a figure who is crying out to God in desperation. He is in the worst of circumstances. It looks like his enemies have conquered him. They laugh at his affliction. Everyone believes the figure has been deserted by God.

BUT ... in verse 24 we read the following:

"For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard."

The whole purpose of Psalm 22 is to show that even though it seems like God has turned his back on the figure, in fact, God has been with that person the entire time. He has not rejected.

So when Mark includes Jesus crying out the first line of Psalm 22, he is pointing to the entire Psalm and its meaning, arguing that, just like in the Psalm, even though it seems like God has rejected Jesus, the exact opposite is true: God is with Jesus the entire time him.

The people who gathered at the cross to watch Jesus be executed with the brigands were oblivious to this. In fact, Mark highlights their confusion by saying that when they heard Jesus say, " ELOI, ELOI", they thought he was saying "Elijah, Elijah" (Mark 15:35).

Interestingly, so many of us get this wrong, too. The original readers of Mark would have gotten the literary allusion and understood the meaning: God did not reject or turn his back on Jesus during the crucifixion.

What Hinders Baptism?

I read this line in a Baptist Press article. I've highlighted my point of interest.

"Because the seminary is not a church and does not have the authority to baptize, SBTC President Jim Richards said the baptismal pool will provide a place for churches that do not have a baptismal and a place for students to practice the ordinance before entering formal full-time pastoral ministry."

Why doesn't the seminary have the authority to baptize? Do not all believers have the authority to baptize? Did not Christ himself give all believers the authority to baptize?

Actually, HE was given the authority and then commanded us to baptize.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

I wonder if only churches have the authority to make disciples and teach. If that is so, then the seminary will have to close down.

And we are baptized into Christ, not the Church.

Sure, we are often bapitzed IN a church building. And we often become members of a church when baptized (providing all the proper forms have been filled out and are accurate, though sometimes such red tape can be done retroactively depending upon the individual situation).

I am quite partial to the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. Philip teaches the Ethiopian and then he baptizes the Ethiopian. No "church" in site (Intended joke). [For another great joke, see The Humour of Deutero-Isaiah in Isaiah 56:3-5]

In fact, when wanting to be baptized, the Ethopian asked one of my favorite questions in the Bible: "What hinders me from being baptized?" (v. 36)

Really, what does hinder baptism?

Immersing Cancer Patients [Updated]

So far this month we’ve had six individuals make commitments to follow Jesus (i.e., “get saved”). Four have been youth and two have been adults.

Of these adults, one is a lady who is a former Buddhist. She is also suffering terribly from cancer.

Here is the issue:

This woman wishes to be Baptized into Christ (and this become a member of the church) but … her illness prevents her from being Baptized by immersion.

…

What shall we do?

It appears that our senior pastor is going to ask the deacons to either waive Baptism by immersion for church membership in this woman’s case OR, if she really wants to experience Baptism, allow her to be sprinkled.

Interesting scenario, huh? No unique but somewhat uncommon in Baptist circles.

[UPDATE]

I can now tell you that the woman in question was Baptized by Sprinkling, not immersion. In the tradition of Baptist pragmatism for the sake of the Gospel, this woman, lying in a hospital bed in Chapel Hill, NC, was Baptized by the sprinkling of water ... using a North Carolina Tar Heel cup.

The worst part is that both she and her husband are NC State Wolfpack fans.

Seminary president says evolution 'incompatible' with Christian faith

[I'm a bit busy at the moment and unable take the couple of minutes necessary to refute the silly arguments of Dr. Mohler's gross ignorance of the Scriptures and evolutionary theory. Not that Karl Giberson, vice president of the BioLogos Foundation, does much better defending his position. But I have argued the point elsewhere. You can find my many articles on the subject below under "Evolution".]

By Bob Allen
Wednesday, August 25, 2010

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- According to the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, evolution and Christianity are not compatible.

"The theory of evolution is incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ even as it is in direct conflict with any faithful reading of the Scriptures," Albert Mohler, head of the Louisville, Ky., school, wrote in his blog.

Mohler's Aug. 25 blog posting was an open letter in response to an Aug. 21 Huffington Post article that accused him of making false statements about Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who originated the concept of natural selection to explain the diversity of life.

Karl Giberson, vice president of the BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group formed to promote harmony between science and faith, reacted in the Huffington Post to comments critical of Darwin by Mohler delivered June 19 at an annual conference of Ligonier Ministries, founded by Calvinist theologian and pastor R.C. Sproul.

Giberson first questioned Mohler's critique of Darwin in an open letter July 6 on the BioLogos website. After waiting two months for a response, Giberson concluded in the Huffington Post article that Mohler "does not seem to care about the truth and seems quite content to simply make stuff up when it serves his purpose."

In his June speech, Mohler argued for the "exegetical and theological necessity" of affirming the universe is no more than several thousand years old and was created in six 24-hour days as recorded in Genesis.

Mohler said Bible passages like Romans 8 attribute death, pain and disaster to the fall of Adam as recorded in Genesis 3.

"We end up with enormous problems if we try to interpret a historical fall and understand a historical fall in an old-Earth rendering," Mohler said, referring to the school of interpretation that views a metaphorical reading of the creation passages in Genesis as compatible with both Christianity and evolutionary science. "This is most clear when it comes to Adam's sin."

"Was it true that, as Paul argues, when sin came, death came?" Mohler asked. "Well just keep in mind that if the Earth is indeed old, and we infer that it is old because of the scientific data, the scientific data is also there to claim that long before the emergence of Adam -- if indeed there is the recognition of a historical Adam -- and certainly long before there was the possibility of Adam's sin, there were all the effects of sin that are biblically attributed to the fall and not to anything before the fall. And we're not only talking about death, we're talking about death by the millions and billions."

Giberson, author of Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, objected primarily in the Huffington Post article to Mohler's suggestion that evolution was "invented" to prop up Darwin's worldview rather than to explain observations in the natural world. He called it a "common misrepresentation" that evangelicals use to discredit evolution.

In his earlier blog post, however, Giberson questioned other statements in Mohler's address. They included: "We need to recognize that disaster ensues when the book of nature or general revelation is used in some way to trump Scripture and special revelation."

"I am taking you to mean that we should not let information from outside the Bible change our minds about what is inside the Bible," Giberson wrote.

"The example in your talk would suggest that information from geological records, radioactive dating, cosmic expansion and so on -- all of which suggests that the universe is billions of years old -- should not persuade us to set aside the natural reading of Genesis which suggests that the Earth is young," he wrote. "Is this a fair statement of your position?"

Giberson observed that the "natural reading" of Psalm 93 is that the Earth is fixed and cannot be moved. "Indeed this was thrown at Galileo and got him in trouble for proposing an 'unbiblical' astronomy."

He said "natural" readings of other Bible passages also suggest that slavery is OK and the moon is a light-creating body similar to the sun and "not just a big rock."

"Is there not a long list of examples where general revelation has forced us to set aside special revelation?" Giberson asked in his open letter to Mohler.

Mohler conceded in his blog to one statement that "appears to misrepresent to some degree Darwin's intellectual shifts before and during his experience on the Beagle" but otherwise proclaimed that "I stand by my address in full." He said he plans to address some of the issues raised by Giberson in the coming months.

"If your intention in Saving Darwin is to show 'how to be a Christian and believe in evolution,' what you have actually succeeded in doing is to show how much doctrine Christianity has to surrender in order to accommodate itself to evolution," Mohler admonished Giberson.

"In doing this, you and your colleagues at BioLogos are actually doing us all a great service. You are showing us what the acceptance of evolution actually costs, in terms of theological concessions."

Jesus' Favourite Books and Music

Do you know what Jesus’ favorite books of the Bible were? If we base our assumptions on the Gospel accounts, Jesus frequently quoted Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Daniel and Psalms - particularly the Psalms!

He and the disciples sang a few psalms before leaving the Last Supper (Matt 26:30; Mark 14:26) to go to the Gethsemane gardens. Even when he was receiving the standard Roman welcome on Golgotha, he was thinking of a psalm (Matt 27:46; Matt 15:34; cf. Psalm 22:1).

Yes, Jesus liked music. Probably due to the influence of Mary - she wrote psalms!Luke 1:46-55. She was just forbidden to explain them!

"Deacons" for "Elders", "Ministers" for "Elderess"

It is a well-known fact that many Southerns Baptist churches have a leadership structure in which “deacons” effectively perform the function of “elders”. Such churches do not recognize "elders" as such and do not use the term in any sense. This interchangeability of terms rarely causes a problem in churches. Neither English term is actually found in the New Testament Greek Bible.

Of course, the New Testament Greek terms for “pastor” (poimen), “overseer” (episkopos), and “elder” (presbyteros) are virtually synonymous (Acts 20:17, 28). The term “elder” (presbyteros) (Acts 20:17; 1 Tim 5:17-18; Tit 1:5; Jas 5:14; 1 Pet 5:1-4) can refer either to chronological age or to a specific ministry within the Church.

The title itself suggests spiritual oversight, for elders fulfilled certain ministries such as anointing the sick (Jas 5:14) as well as preaching, teaching, admonishing and guarding against heresy (Tit 1:9). Therefore, an “elder” is a believer whose has the Christian maturity (the fruit) to mentor another Christian. Women are called to this function (1 Tim 5:2) just as men are (1 Tim 5:2).

In 1 Timothy 5, Paul refers to both “elder” (presbytero) and “elderess” (presbyteras). In Titus 2, Paul uses a slightly different word for “elder” (presbytas) and “elderess” (presbytidas). Both are adjectival forms of the terms of 1 Timothy 5. In the context of the Pastoral Epistles and with regard to the similarity between the requirements of both in the 1 Timothy 5 and Titus 2 chapters, it appears obvious that Paul is speaking of the same function. This conforms to the Biblical support for female prophets (Ex 15:20, 21; Jud 4:4, 5; 2 Kin 22:12-20; Is. 8:1-3; Joel 2:28; Lk 2:36; Ac 21:9; I Cor 11) and female apostles (Roman 16:7).

Nevertheless, I believe that individuals are called by God and that ordination is the church’s recognition of what the Holy Spirit has already done in the life and ministry of an individual believer. The Church does not always accurately discern the Holy Spirit in this matter and, thus, some Christians are ordained who have not been called and others who have been called have not been ordained. I do not believe that a church’s error in such a case invalidates the call. An individual can still perform the function of a deacon and pastor whether or not they are formally recognized as such.

Therefore, since almost every Southern Baptist church not only permits but encourages spiritually mature women to be involved in evangelizing, encouraging, discipling, worshipping, serving, admonishing, praying, and setting a faithful witness to what God has done in their lives through Christ, I am quite content to let the Holy Spirit work out this issue in his own time. Within the local church, I prefer to remain silent on the contentious subject.

Apparently, many Southern Baptist churches have adopted the same approach. Instead, of a woman serving as "Administrative Pastor" or "Children's Pastor", we have women serving as "Minister of Administration" or "Children's Minister" and, one that I recently noticed, "Director of Administration" and "Director of Children's Ministry".

Think about it: Minister, Director, Manager, Executive, Administrator, Supervisor, Advisor, Principal, Superintendent, Officer, Controller ...

Just so long as a church doesn't use a term found in an English Bible Southern Baptists will not be able to exclude them for having a female functioning as a "pastor".

This is how we know the egalitarians are going to win!