More July birthdays
We had two more birthdays to celebrate tonight, one retrospectively and one in advance:
Paid On The Nail
Graham Kendrick captures the value of an individual in this song:
‘Is a rich man worth more than a poor man?
A stranger worth less than a friend?
Is a baby worth more than an old man?
Your beginning worth more than your end?
Is a president worth more than his assassin?
Does your value decrease with your crime?
Like when Christ took the place of Barabbas
Would you say he was wasting his time?
Well, how much do you think you are worth, boy?
Will anyone stand up and say?
Would you say that a man is worth nothing
Until someone is willing to pay?
I suppose that you think that you matter
Well, how much do you matter to whom?
It’s much easier at night when with friends and bright lights
Than much later alone in your room
Do you think they’ll miss one in a billion
When you finish this old human race?
Does it really make much of a difference
When your friends have forgotten your face?
If you heard that your life had been valued
That a price had been paid on the nail
Would you ask what was traded,
How much and who paid it
Who was He and what was His name?
If you heard that His name was called Jesus
Would you say that the price was too dear?
Held to the cross not by nails but by love
It was you broke His heart, not the spear!
Would you say you are worth what it cost Him?
You say ‘no’, but the price stays the same.
If it don’t make you cry, laugh it off, pass Him by,
But just remember the day when you throw it away
That He paid what He thought you were worth.’ (‘How Much Do You Think You Are Worth?’, Graham Kendrick)
Celebrity Culture
Garry’s ‘Talking Point’ sermon tonight looked at the subject of celebrity culture. Celebrities seem to enjoy incredible importance and influence in the Western world, be they film stars, sportspeople, talent show winners or Internet celebrities.
Their fame,wealth and success are things ordinary people aspire to; indeed, many young people today cite ‘being famous’ as their life goal, even if they have no idea what they want to do to achieve fame! Often, this failure to achieve celebrity status breeds resentment and a sense of failure, but social media can create the illusion of fame even for the most ordinary of people. Some will go to extraordinarily dubious lengths to achieve fame (e.g. the Ukrainian mobster, Leonid “Tarzan” Fainberg, whose ‘claim to fame’ was as a sex trafficker who said, “You can buy a woman for $10,000 and make your money back in a week if she is pretty and young. Then everything else is profit.”)
What is also significant today is the increasingly varied roles that celebrities play in contemporary culture and the cultural authority that they are granted in those roles: we see celebrities serving as heroes, cultural commentators, charity spokespeople, role models and political candidates, to name just a few. It is truly frightening when politics, education, and our most intimate relationships become entertainment left to the dictates of a few celebrities.
Celebrity culture is founded on the Western lie that people have no intrinsic value set by God. If God is thrown out of the equation, then the value or worth of individuals becomes a commodity to be traded and fame and wealth become the values we live by. Katie Price once said, “No one can live without money. Money and religion are the big things, and that’s it, and I stay away from religion. We love to earn money, who doesn’t? It gets you things and it’s security.” Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity’s book ‘Life’s A Pitch’ argued that the most important thing anyone could sell is themselves, which celebrities do with startling success.
Celebrity culture cannot give people the security and worth they all desire, however: only God can do this. Gen 1:26 reminds us people are made in God’s image and mean so much to Him that He sent His only Son to die for them (John 3:16, Gal 2:19-20). Christ gave Himself as a ransom for people (1 Tim 2:5-6). Our worth is priceless; we are worth far more than the market price for a bag of heroin. Dr. Eric R. Pianka may claim people ‘are no better than bacteria’ and can therefore be destroyed on a whim (see here), but the truth is that God places great value on people and we have a hope that cannot be measured by culture. No matter what others say we are worth, God’s value of us gives us dignity, hope and security. We don’t need celebrity endorsements; we have God’s approval, love and grace.
Light-emitting disciples
John spoke thi morning from John 12:23-36, a sermon he entitled ‘Lifted by Love, Attracted by Grace.’ Sin has broken the relationship man had originally with God and causes us to fear that relationship with God for which we were created, but through Jesus, we are drawn back into relationship with God. Sin and shame cause us to look down, unable to see God’s brilliance and glory, but God wants us to look up. He lifts us from our facedown position of shame to our knees in prayer and longs to lift us onto our feet so that we can become the people He made us to be.
Jesus told His disciples they are the light of the world (Matt 5:14) who are called to shine like stars in the universe. (Phil 2:12-16) The reason God has put us on our feet is so that we can emit and radiate God’s light, being effective, honest and constant lights in a dark world. Heb 4:14-16 tells us that we can only maintain this glow as we dwell in God’s presence. We are not called simply to be passive reflectors of God’s light, but to be light-emitting disciples.
A reflector on a bike is passive, simply reflecting any light that shines upon it:
LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are light sources which emit bright light when activated:
Jesus calls us not only to reflect His light, but to allow His light to shine through us so that we can each shine in such a way that people are drawn to Him and glorify God through our lives. We are called to work out our salvation, evaluating and discerning God’s individual plan for our lives so that we can reflect Him in all the different circumstances and experiences of life.
The Wider Question of Women in Church Leadership
The wider question of the role of women in church leadership is beyond the scope of this blog: it’s a question that has been debated for centuries, and countless books and articles have been written on the subject. However, it is important to address such issues, for gender equality is indeed a major talking point in today’s society. It is hard for young people to understand the historical question of a patriarchal society; when we read passages such as 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in the 21st century, we can come away with the idea that women are, in the words of Tom Wright, ‘second-class citizens at every level… not even allowed to dress prettily… daughters of Eve (and she was the original troublemaker)’ for whom ‘the best thing for them to do is to get on and have children, and to behave themselves and keep quiet.’ Such a view either feeds men’s view that they are superior in every way or causes women to seethe because they feel misrepresented on so many levels. It leads to impassioned debates and heated arguments, but does not necessarily help us to know what the Biblical position on gender differences and leadership really is.
A stereotype is ‘a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.’ There are definite truths to be found in stereotypes, but just as we should all recognise that not all Englishmen wear suits, bowler hats and carry umbrellas or are lager-drinking football hooligans, not all Frenchmen wear striped jumpers and berets with a string of onions and garlic around their neck and not all Middle Eastern men with beards are terrorists, so we ought to put aside gender stereotypes to discover what the Bible actually has to say about gender differences.
Men and women were both created in God’s image (Gen 1:27), but there are fundamental biological and emotional differences between them. Paul recognises diversity within the church, talking about the church as a body made up of separate parts which nonetheless form a unified whole (1 Cor 12:12-31, Romans 12:4-8). Just as he has been keen to stress the need for a wide range of spiritual gifts in order to build up this vibrant organic body of Christ (Eph 4:1-16), we have to recognise that men and women possess different gifts and personalities which are all needed, but which are not identical. The typical stereotypes of macho men and simpering women or hen-pecked husbands and ‘women who wear the trousers’ are not enough to recognise the diversity and complexity of human beings.
It does seem that when Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus, the emphasis there was on a female cult worship: ‘The Temple of Artemis (that’s her Greek name; the Romans called her Diana) was a massive structure which dominated the area; and, as befitted worshippers of a female deity, the priests were all women. They ruled the show and kept the men in their place.’ (Tom Wright) Such a philosophy, minus its religious overtones, may well seem typical of today’s Western society too. There is little surprise, then, that Paul should want to avoid Christianity following this path, which might explain his use of the idea that women should not teach or ‘assume authority’ over a man (1 Tim 2:12). ‘Paul is saying, like Jesus in Luke 10, that women must have the space and leisure to study and learn in their own way, not in order that they may muscle in and take over the leadership as in the Artemis-cult, but so that men and women alike can develop whatever gifts of learning, teaching and leadership God is giving them.’ (ibid.)
Both men and women have many different gifts. I believe the ministry of women is often significantly different to the ministry of men and that for all in leadership, it’s vital to understand the Jesus principle that ‘whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.’ (Mark 10:43-44) Diversity is really far more necessary than we often think, but nothing can ever supersede this principle of service. I believe the best leadership teams will include both men and women (because then the scope of service is greater) who will be willing to work together in humility and submission (Eph 5:21-24) with mutual respect.
The Role of Women
Paul is often portrayed as a misogynistic leader, relegating women to a subservient role in the church (and society), a view largely based on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Certainly, these verses can be taken to mean women should be seen and not heard, and have been used throughout history to justify a male-dominated view of leadership. However, it is difficult to see Paul as a miserable woman-hater when he takes pains to stress the unity and diversity of the church regardless of gender (see Gal 3:28-29) and to emphasise his affection and support for so many women in church life (Rom 16:1-5, Rom 16:6-7, Rom 16:12, 15).
Already in 1 Corinthians, we have seen that a literalist understanding of Scripture, whilst giving us an apparently easier role in terms of exegesis (interpreting the Scriptures), may not be the best approach (see the discussions on 1 Corinthians 8 & 11.) As John Stott comments, there is a need to distinguish between Biblical principles (which don’t change) and the cultural outworking of the principle (which may well change.) This is never easy, though the extremes are. It’s much easier to ban women from any form of leadership than to wrestle with apparent contradictions in the Bible. It’s much easier to adopt modern views of gender equality than to wrestle with Scriptures which affirm the differences between the genders and assert these differences to be God-given (and tampered with at great risk of harm to people.)
Whole books have been written on the question of women in ministry and church leadership; many denominations (including the Anglican church) have grappled with this subject for years. In terms of the passage in 1 Cor 14:34-35, however, there are several different views as to why Paul suddenly mentions the need for women to be silent in the middle of a discussion on spiritual gifts.
That the silence he mentions is not a blanket ban on women speaking in church at all is evident from the fact that he talks of women praying and prophesying in other parts of the Bible (see 1 Cor 11:2-11; 1 Cor 14:26). Female prophets are mentioned in the Old Testament (Huldah in 2 Kings 22 & 2 Chronicles 34; Deborah in Judges 4 & 5, Isaiah’s wife in Isaiah 8:3); we have already considered Philip’s four daughters who prophesied in the New Testament. (Acts 21:9) The notion, then, of total silence from women seems to be at odds with the normative practice of the church throughout history.
Some (e.g. Tom Wright, Lis Goddard) have argued that the silence required from women was because of their disruptive behaviour in church services (given that this comes in the context of church order during services and based on assumptions about the cultural behaviour of women in Corinth, for which there is some historical evidence.) Others (e.g. Wayne Grudem) believe that the silence required refers to the weighing or evaluating of prophecy (which should be left to the wisdom of male leaders). Whatever the conclusion about the specific cultural situation in Corinth, the principle we are left with is that church services should have order (since God is a God of order, not chaos) and that women need to learn submission (see also Ephesians 5:21-24) whilst acknowledging their valuable role in church life.