I spend a lot of time yearning for people to get the goodness of the Bible’s teaching about gender. I think, “If they could see how this works in the lives of the counter-cultural folks living it out, they would see its beauty. The lights would go on.” So I am always on the lookout for preachers or teachers who speak well about it, who are willing to speak against the grain but who also are more concerned with showing the goodness of how it works.
Yet as one tries to speak about how equality and asymmetry work among women and men in relationship, one very quickly encounters the modern aversion to the idea of hierarchy. Whether it is in Trinitarian theologians like the very influential Jürgen Moltmann, who died last year, or the prevailing work in the academy, or the young person you are likely to meet, hierarchy is always understood as oppression, in in any place and time. Now, it certainly can mean that. In some instances, it does. But, to the next generation, it necessarily means that. So, to the word’s use, the response goes beyond the hermeneutic of suspicion to the reaction of rage.
A Christian woman recently commented to me, “Never once did Jesus ever tell a believer to submit to another person.” This was an intelligent and sincere person. I wondered, how could she come to this place of ignoring certain Scriptures (e.g, Mat 5:41, Mat 19:28 (note thrones to rule others), Mat 23:2-3, Joh 20:23, or by inference, Mat 28:20, Mat 16:19, Mat 21:28-31) in her position? Or how she could downgrade the apostolic testimony in the rest of the New Testament (by those appointed by Jesus to teach)? If you just took solely what the apostles wrote, it seems Jesus did indeed tell them to submit to other people. I pondered how under our culture’s direction we easily adopt a way of looking at the world that will no longer allow the Scriptures to speak to us.
So, as I said, I always look for faithful, proclaiming (rather than reacting) proclaimers. The other Sunday, I happened in on a Sunday to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster and happened to hear a great sermon on this. Have a listen. Dr. Chris Walker’s sermon was balanced and forthright. I liked how he started with forgiveness for sexual sin. He did the hard work of addressing folks where they might be failing in their marriages. Also, he stressed that, to become one, there is an ownership of one another, contra
control, oppression and possessiveness. I could have appreciated more illustration, but he was covering a lot of ground in this one of a series. Very well done.
So, there are those who still speak well on this important issue. Now, we need the other essential ingredient to proclamation, to show its beauty in how we live…