Category: The Stories We Tell

Bible, The Stories We Tell

Truth Is the Loneliest Number

Posted on by Jay Givens

At the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) next week, Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, plans to introduce an amendment to the SBC’s constitution that he calls the “Truth and Unity” amendment. It would require cooperative churches to “not act to affirm, appoint, or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, such as preaching to the assembled congregation.”

Adding this prohibition to Article III Section 1 of the constitution would equate a church that is either led by woman or allows a woman to preach to a church that ignores sexual abuse (1.4), affirms racial discrimination (1.5), or affirms homosexual behavior (1.1). On several occasions, Mohler has equated this proposal to the 1990s amendment on homosexuality.

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The preamble of the Baptist Faith and Message (1925, 1963, 2000) emphasizes that, “confessions are only guides in interpretation, having no authority over the conscience.” That is, Baptists are committed to the Scripture as the sole authority for our faith as we are guided by the Holy Spirit speaking to our conscience.

Historically, churches could have variance on minor doctrinal issues of the confession as long as they affirmed the major doctrinal statements (e.g., the divinity of Christ). Does the convention really want to equate a church that is led by a godly female pastor with a church that covers up the sexual abuse of a leader, simply because the convention and the church differ on their interpretation of the whole of Scripture?

Is this a first-order doctrinal issue that requires a break in fellowship? Mohler seems to feel it is, since he also plans to request suspension of an SBC rule that normally requires a year’s delay between a motion and its debate on the floor.

While Mohler says this proposed amendment is narrower and clearer than the failed Law Amendment, churches must consider how broadly “functions” can be interpreted. On his May 15 The Briefing podcast, Mohler answered a listener’s question about her church. She said the pastor and staff answer follow-up questions about the pastor’s sermon on a podcast. Since one of the staff is female, Mohler said she was “assuming the role of a pastor” and that this was wrong. Are female staff members not able to share thoughts about a sermon with a dispersed congregation (via a podcast)? Are they not Spirit-filled?

How should we understand Phoebe being selected by Paul to carry his letter to the Romans (16:1-2)? When Paul selected others to carry his letters, they were expected to represent him and answer questions that might arise on Paul’s behalf (e.g., Timothy in 1 Cor 4:16-19; 16:10-11; Titus in 2 Cor 7:6-7, 13-15; 12:18-19). How is this female staff member different? (For a deeper discussion of Phoebe, see my prior Baptist Standard articles, part 1 and part 2.)

Can women never proclaim the truths of God or interpret Scripture for men? It seems strange, then, that King Josiah, when he learned of the curses in the Book of the Law, begged the priest Hilkiah to inquire of the LORD about their lack of obedience to the Book of the Law. So Hilkiah and several of the Kings high officials went to Huldah, a married female prophet, who interpreted the Scripture for their specific context (2 Ki 22:8-20; 2 Chr 34:14-28). Why did Jesus appear to women and not men and ask them to be the first testifiers to the Gospel of the risen Lord? Yes, we must consider Paul’s statements in 1 Cor 14:34; 1 Tim 2:11-12, but they must be read in light of the whole of Scripture—including Paul’s use of Phoebe, declaration of Priscilla as co-worker (Rom 16:3), and expectation that women in Corinth prophesy (1 Co 11:5).

If this amendment is approved, then will the Southern Baptist Convention rename the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering? She preached to the assembled congregation in China. What does it say about the ministry of Billy Graham, who called his daughter Anne Graham Lotz, “the best preacher in the family” on several occasions. Would Second Baptist, Houston be liable for exclusion from the convention because it had Lotz preach for Mother’s Day in 2021?

Since the start of church history, there has been a debate on whether the church should emphasize truth or unity. While Paul believed in truth as found in Christ, he primarily emphasized love and unity against those who sought purity of faith. His opponents sought Gentile circumcision and obedience to the law as evidence of true faithfulness to God. Paul said the New Man, Christ Jesus, has made the two one (Eph 2:15), a oneness that also includes slave and free, male and female (Gal 3:28).

For almost fifty years, Southern Baptists have been known for fighting over truth. Is it not time to listen to Jesus? “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). While truth indeed is important, without love, truth is the loneliest number that you’ll ever know (to paraphrase the 1 Cor 13 and Harry Nilsson).

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Christian living, The Stories We Tell

The Stories We Tell . . . Part 1

Posted on by Jay Givens

We tell ourselves stories all the time.  Not verbally, necessarily; they can be the thoughts we think to ourselves—the narrative in which we view reality.  The stories that we tell ourselves shape our understanding of the past, the way we live life today, and the person we will become in the future.

So where do we get our stories?  Who do we listen to?  What do we read?  What do we set before our eyes?  The ones we spend the most time with will inevitably have the most impact on the stories we tell ourselves and how we view our life as a narrative.  I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately.  It seems every book I pick up or podcast I turn on has this theme underlying it.  What stories do we choose to listen to?  The stories we tell ourselves will vary quite a bit depending on the input we select.  And this variance can impact how we view our world, how live out our lives, how we see others, and ultimately, how we conceive of God.

You can see the impact of stories we tell ourselves within the pages of the Bible itself.  As but one example, let’s look at the stories found in the Old Testament that attempt to explain the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian empire.  The writer of 2 Kings argues that the fall of the kingdom of Judah was ultimately the consequence of the Israelites turning away from God and worshiping idols, especially during the time of King Manasseh (2Ki 21).  The writer of 2 Kings then portrays King Josiah in heroic terms as someone fighting to undo the errors of his grandfather Manasseh, attempting to turn the nation back to God by destroying the temples, the idols, the high places, and even the priests and prophets that were leading the people astray (2Ki 23).

Heroic though Josiah’s efforts were, within 25 years of his death Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.  Though the prophet Jeremiah supported Josiah’s reform movement (2Chr 35:25; Jer 11:21; 36:2), we find a far different story in the book of Jeremiah to explain the fall of Jerusalem.  The story is told by some Jews who fled to Egypt with a kidnapped Jeremiah.  They rebelliously tell Jeremiah that when they worshiped the Queen of Heaven (one of the various idols they worshiped), they “had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm.  But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine” (Jer 44:17b-18, NIV).  So where the writer of 2 Kings blamed the fall of Jerusalem on the people’s continuous worship of various idols and practice of things forbidden by God (cf. Jer 44:2-6), the Jews in Egypt instead blamed Josiah’s and Jeremiah’s reform for the destruction, since Josiah put an end to the worship of idols and Jeremiah continued to preach this policy through the destruction of the kingdom.

Just as the Jews interpreted a historical event (the fall of Jerusalem) within one of two narratives (either the result of the Lord God’s anger about idol worship or the Queen of Heaven’s anger that her worship had ceased), so we create a narrative to make sense of events that happen in our own lives.  We tell ourselves stories.  The question is, are we telling ourselves the right stories?

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