Malachi 1

We have just recently finished our series in Acts. It was a good book to go through because I felt that it reminded us that as church we have neglected the role of prayer in our daily lives, as well as the role of prayer in our worship services. It was also good because it gave a biblical basis for some of the new things that we have tried to do here, and I think all and all it is good to be reminded of the purpose of the church and what her function is in the mission of God.

So naturally after finishing Acts, the next logical book is Malachi. The reason I chose Malachi is practical, personal and theological. Practically we have 4 Sundays (not including Mother's day) before the summer starts, and I wanted to finish this book before everyone scatters for the summer! On a personal level, I love the minor prophets! And theologically, it is good to be reminded of some things about God. Especially after a whole book where I challenged them to "do" something every Sunday.

So with that being said, we launched into Malachi 1 this past Sunday. I really enjoyed studying this chapter. In the first 5 verses there is so much packed in there that we would have been there for 2 hours unpacking everything! With that being said, I will probably have to do another post about the Jacaob-Esau motif that is used by Malachi to illustrate God's love for his people.

The point of the first part of Malachi is that God has loved us perfectly, even though we are continually unfaithful to His covenant. The Israelites forget this and "ask when have you loved us?" In other words, they were implying that God has not loved them at all, or at least not loved them the way they thought they were supposed to be loved. They are still a weak nation. They are still small, and they are rather poor. They have just returned from exile where they suffered great humiliation, and to them it seems like they have suffered all for nothing. So Malachi reminds them that they are still God's covenant people, and reminds them basically that even though they had whored themselves out to other things, God has been with them and loved them through everything and has brought them out of exile, and had destroyed Edom because of their opposition to his covenant people. So really the Lord's response in layman's terms is "You have got to be kidding me, how can you even say that!?" It is equivalent to the friend who always asks you for favors and then after 25 times in a row of saying yes and doing whatever it is he/she needs, you say "no" one time and they get all huffy and say "I thought we were friends!" I know this illustration breaks down at some point, but the issue here is that Israel has benefitted greatly from God establishing a covenant with them, and when things don't turn out like they want it to, they ask God "when have you loved us?" Perhaps this is something to think about when we are going through rough times, and to be grateful that we have a God who is still deeply concerned, and deeply in love with his covenant people, even when it is not tangible to us at the time.

The second half of the first chapter (and going on into chapter 2, through v. 9) deals with the priests accepting sacrifices to the Lord that are specifically forbidden in Leviticus. In short, this deals with the issue of lack of fear (reverence for the Lord). The whole situation is summed up when God says (through Malachi), "you wouldn't even bring this to your governor, and yet you bring it to me?" They are bringing sacrifices to God that wouldn't even be acceptable to a fallen, sinful human being, and they are trying to pawn off these things to God!? Moral of the story: take God seriously!

It seems to me that, at least in the Western Cuture, and particularly in the Bible Belt, we have this tendency to view worship with this contemptuous attitude. In other words, we really don't focus on God throughout the week, and we simply show up to church hoping to "experience" or "feel" something. When in reality, the Scriptures are full of passages that condemn this attitude. We have whole book (Leviticus) dedicated to how things should be prepared for worship and what is acceptable and unacceptable when it comes to offering something in worship. Now we don't have the need for animal sacrifices anymore, but we do have our lives to offer. And this attitude of simply coming to worship services because of what we might get out of it, or because we think that somehow it will appease God and he might have mercy on us is wrong and irreverent! God says in Malachi, it would be better for the doors to be shut and worship not to go on, than to do what you are doing. In fact, the passage in Malachi even says that their prayers are not heard by Yahweh because of their irreverent attitude!! In 1 Peter 3:7 it warns husbands who are mistreating their wives, that their prayers can be hindered. Honestly I have never been taught that there are some things that I can do, or a lifestyle that I can live that will cause the Lord to have deaf ears when it comes to my prayers and the things I offer him. This passage really caused me to reevaluate how I prepare for worship each Sunday, and not only that, it has caused me to reevaluate the way I live my life. It has caused me to always be reminded that the sacrifice I bring to the Lord is my very life. I am either living for him, or I am living in opposition to Him. There really is no other option.

May we evaluate our lives, and may they be pleasing to God. May our worship be pleasing to God because of the sacrifice that we offer to Him.

Women in Scripture #7

Ok so confession time. I said in my last post there would be 2 more posts on this topic. However, I have decided that this will be the last entry on this topic. Why you may ask? Well 7 is the perfect number, so it seemed appropriate (ha, sorry, lame seminarian joke). Really, I am just feeling like I am repeating myself, and that is no fun to write, and if it is no fun to write, logic tells me, it is even less fun to read. So this will be the last entry simply because I am ADHD and want to write about other things!

So the passage that must be addressed in this entire thing is the big one in 1 Corinthians 14, starting in verse 34 which says that women should remain silent in church. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husband at home; for it is disgraceful for women to speak in church.

Now at first glance this would seem to end any argument about women preaching in church, teaching men in church, etc. However, it seems to me that this is the worst case of proof texting that we do as a church. To apply this passage as deeming it inappropriate for women to speak, teach, or preach in church is to lift it entirely out of cultural context. The reason this is important is because if we are going to take the things Paul says literally then those same people who claim this passage is applicable for today with no regard to cultural context, should not let their wives cut their hair (1 Cor. 11) or to wear jewery, braid their hair, wear expensive clothes, wear anything that could be considered immodest (i.e. any leg showing) (1 Tim. 2:9). Further, if they take everything literally that Paul writes then any woman who does not bear children cannot be saved (1 Tim. 2:10).

So it seems to me that we take these passages about women teaching over men and hold them up as the example of which to follow in our churches, yet we completely ignore anything else pertaining to women when it comes to the way they are dressing, when it comes to the way they wear their hair, when it comes to whether or not they cut their hair, and if we took literally things Paul said, then women are saved through the cross plus childbearing (which no one would ever say).

Incidentally, the 1 Timothy passage also talks about women not having authority over man as well. But the interpretation of that passage and how to look at it will be the same basic argument as looking at this Corinthians passsage.

So to the passage in 1 Corinthians 14. First it is appropriate to discuss the cultural setting in which the Corinthian church is set. The view of woman was very low, in the Greek world Sophocles actually said "silence confers grace upon a woman." According to Barclay, women, unless they were very poor or very loose, usually lived a life of solitude in Greece. If you can believe it, the Jewish view of women was even lower!! There were many Rabbinic sayings that belittle women such as: "to teach the law to a woman was to cast pearls before swine." The Talmud actually lists among the plagues of the world "the talkative and the inquisitive widow and the virgin who wastes her time in prayers!"(Barclay, Letters to Corinthians, 136) WOW! According to his, women shouldn't even pray, should we enforce this as well? Lastly, it was forbidden to speak to a woman in the street.

So with that setting, we read what is going on in the passage of Corinthians. There are two different views on what is going on in this passage.

First, Paul is not negating the fact that as he wrote in Galatians, "there is no Greek or Jew....male or female," where he essentially is saying that in Christ all walls are broken down. Rather, these women are abusing their new found freedom and causing disruption in the church service itself. And so essentially he is saying that if you cannot control your freedom, then you don't get to use it at all.

Second, Paul is writing to a church that is in infancy, and with a concern of their lax moral standards. And so in his mind he is trying to help a church in its infant stages not to bring upon itself the suspicion of immodesty.

In either scenario, Paul is writing within a particular context and culture. We see this all the time even today when the Gospel penetrates a culture where men are dominant and women are to be seen and not heard. There is not this drastic change that happens overnight where men and women are viewed as equals. And so we see here in Corinthians, Paul is concerned with the church's witness as a whole, and is speaking to a specific issue of the time. To take this passage about women speaking in church and extrapolate it and take it literally as a universal truth causes great problems with the rest of the things Pauls says in this letter and other letters.

No one has ever been able to explain to me why women can not preach and teach in church, yet they can wear gold, designer clothes (usually skirts that are too short), heels, hair done up, and that not be going against what Paul writes in our Scriptures.

Either we are going to take everything that is said literally and apply it as universal truth, or we need to examine Scripture and understand it within the culture it is written, and THEN figure out the application for us today. Those are the only two options. Can we please stop picking and choosing which passages about women we want to enforce?

Women in Scripture #6

Before getting into the topic today, I want to remind people of why I have decided to do this series. This is an attempt to search Scripture in order to find out if the stance we have taken when it comes to women is Biblical or if it is a result of traditionalism that has left women oppressed within our church congregations. The goal is to start discussion and maybe influence change in a way that still keeps the unity of the body in tact.

One other thing, this series was never intended to be an exhaustive list of passages of women in Scripture or texts that address women in Scripture. My hope is just to deal with the most controversial ones and then be finished. That being said, there will be 3 or 4 more entries on this topic. One reason being, I will probably start repeating myself shortly, and that is boring to read. Another reason, I am ADHD and need to move to something else or I get really "panicky" :).

Today's blog post actually came out of research I am doing for a new series that we are starting as a church. We just finished the book of Acts (in only short 8 months!) and are moving on to the book of Malachi. In researching for this book, I felt it necessary to research the role of prophecy in general when it came to Israel and give a brief overview of their function. In other words I wanted to start by dispelling the myth that prophets are simply people who talk about the future (foretelling) and demonstrate that when they speak they are speaking into certain situations and giving warnings of God's response as it relates to his covenant with them (forthtelling).

At any rate, I was reading about different prophets, and came across Elijah and Elisha. And as I was reading 2 Kings 4 it hit me that not only were women not a problem when it came to leadership, they were actually part of guilds or schools known as "sons of the prophets!" In 2 Kings 4 we see that Elijah and Elisha were leaders of prophetic communities at Bethel, Jericho, and Gilgal (2 Kings 2:3-4; 4:38). Now members of these guilds were not tied down to any one place but were free to travel around and deliver the oracles of God. In 2 Kings 4:1-7 we see that a woman was part of this guild!

Now, this is not new to us in one sense. We have women in seminaries all over the place preparing for ministry. What is unique is that fact that these women belonging to these prophetic communities seem to function in the same capacity as the men, and there is no real debate concerning whether or not what the women are doing when they prophesy is biblical. It still amazes me that women who are in seminary are still told where they can serve, and in what capacities. And again, this may not be explicit, but implicit in the way things are structured in the church, in the silence on topics such as women's ability to being pastor's, etc. However, it seems that there is an increasing amount of pastors out there who are becoming more vocal about the "appropriate" roles for women.

Yet throughout the history of Israel, women served and functioned in all capacities. Even prophets (which as I have said before is equivalent of a pastor today)! It seems to me that views on this issue are not grounded on our Scriptures so much as a tradition that was started by human origins.

If women were being used by God throughout all of Israel's history and are good enough for God to use as he sees fit. Shouldn't they be viewed by us in the same way?

Update!

So it has been a long time since I have entered something on this blog and I know both of my readers are eagerly waiting in anticipation, so I wanted to give a quick update before I continue the series of "Women in Scriptures."

It has been an exciting last month at our church. We have seen three people come to Christ, and have had 2 baptisms! This past Sunday was the third person to accept Jesus. This one was exciting for me because it was one of the youth that lives directly behind our house. We have been praying for him and his family since being here. The Lord has allowed me to build a relationship with the entire family and yesterday He allowed us to see the benefits of our prayers and that relationship. I must say here, that it was not just my relationship with the family, but my wife's leadership in the youth ministry that was very instrumental in this boy coming to know Jesus. She put on a D-now that really challenged the students about the way they should live their lives, and the demands that Jesus' call places on all of us who desire to follow him. The best part of the D-Now was that there was a challenging message but in an environment that was fun and relaxed. I believe the Lord was working through that D-Now and this kid has been coming every Sunday and Wednesday since then, hearing the message of God.

I am thankful that the Lord allowed us to see the results of our labor. Also, I am not saying it was just us that was involved in this process. As John 4 reminds us, some plant and others water. Some will never see the fruit of their labor this side of heaven, but some will. And in those times when the Lord allows you to see someone with whom you have a relationship and been praying for come to faith it gives a feeling like no other!

So the last month has been a whirlwind of baptisms, visiting with people who have confessed Christ and are beginning a life with Christ. God is really doing something here in our church, and I am so blessed that we get to be a part of it!

So as God continues to do amazing things (even in spite of the pastor they have :) ) pray for us as continue on this awesome journey!