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Date Posted: 15:05:57 02/28/05 Mon
Author: Chris
Subject: Re: Gender roles and the Bible
In reply to: Anonymous 's message, "Gender roles and the Bible" on 12:54:09 02/28/05 Mon

Thanks for opening this thread. I want to come back to it when I will find some time, because I think it is very important.

There is the kind of fundamentalist who claims that reading and obeying the Bible is easy: You simply take a verse and obey it, verbatim, without any questions. That's the mindset I have often met in UBF. If you start to question which verses apply and which do not, you are already "liberal" in their way of thinking.

But these people are not candid. Take for instance the verse: "Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." (Lev 19:19). I have not met a single Christian who claimed to be fundametalist (in UBF or outside) who cared about this verse. Why not?

Or take this one: "But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, ... must be put to death. You may say to yourselves, 'How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?' If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously." In many fundamentalist Pentacostal churches, they make false prophecies every day, without ever caring about them. If they would head that verse, there would be a massacre among them. Even Bill Bright, the leader of Campus Crusade, should be killed, because he made a false prophesy about a revival in the year 2000. UBF is a little bit cleverer, they do not make prophesies, they only "pray" for certain numbers, so in the end they can say it was not a prophesy if nothing is fulfilled. But it wasn't in the name of God either.

There are many of such verses that even fundamentalists do not apply (luckily).

So we all need to admit that we obey certain verses, and other verses not, even if fundamentalists are not honest enough to admit this.

I don't think it is a flaw that he or she needs to cover up, but a sign of maturity if a Christian can discern which things to obey and which not. I think God even wants and expects us to make this step. Take for instance Peter when he dreamed about the impure animals and he refused to eat them. Wasn't it a clear and conrete command of God to not eat these animals? Nevertheless God wanted him to make a step over this command. Often God asks us to step over the "legalistic" interpretation of a certain command in order to obey the "real" essence of the same command. In such a way, Jesus disobeyed many man-made Sabbat and purity laws which looked very Biblical and seemed to be directly implied by the Torah.

The Bible is a mystery because it is 100% God's word and 100% men's word at the same time. Just as Jesus was God and humiliated Himself to become a man, so God's word was written by ordinary people in ordinary ways. They were not dictated like the Koran, and you can see the individuality of the various authors and their culture in their writings.

So how do we discern which commands and regulations are valid and applicable today and which not? The problem is that most people make it very simply: They obey the commands that they like and that fit into their worldview (the fundamentalist likes legalistic regulations that he can keep and torture others with, the liberal doesn't like them, he want's to have freedom, but both actually don't care).

The proper solution is to try to get to the core of the Bible, the core commands (Love God + neighbour) and put things into perspective with these, and in perspective with the GOSPEL. The Bible explains itself. We also have to see the context of the verse or command in salvation history (Covenant Theology or Dispensionalism are different attempts to do this). For instance, why don't we need the commands about bloody offerings? Because JESUS is our offering, once and for all. So we need to UNDERSTAND in order to DISCERN.

Often the Bible speaks about PRINCIPLES, not about certain regulatory statutes which may vary over time. For instance, Heb 9:22 "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" is the principle. The offerings of animals in the OT were one application, Jesus' death on the cross in the NT the other application. In both cases, the principle was valid.

I think that HEADSHIP is such a PRINCIPLE. However, the question is how it is applied. Surely not in the way that the man becomes a tyrant in his house and his wife needs to obey everything he says. It doesn't mean that he is better or more valuable than his wife. Nor does it mean that a man is head over other women, only over his own wife. I think the main point about headship is accountability and responsibility.

I think what Mike was so furious about is when people simply wipe away a Biblical PRINCIPLE that is clearly stated in the Bible. (By the way, UBF's overriding the principle of inseparability of marriage by enforcing divorces if one partner leaves UBF is another example of that kind.)

I think we need to deal HONESTLY with the Bible.

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