To Think About

I have been thinking a lot lately about some different things I see going on in the church. While doing this, I often find myself asking "What happened to the church in Acts?" As I began to ponder upon this question I began to ask more and more. I guess you can say most of this started out from one main question of "Why?" About a month ago, I had asked my preacher if I could give a communion meditation. He and my youth minister had no problem with it, if God is calling you to say something, by all means yes. One of our main elders on the other hand said "no." He had felt that this was an "authoritative" position in the church therefore being of the female gender I could not. This startled me, he game me a couple of verses to read to back up his point. (1 Corinthians 11:1-17, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, and 1 Timothy 2:11-16). Not wanting to be disrespectful, I nodded and quietly made my way to the sound booth.

Reading those three verses, I began to rip into them and tear them apart, before I get into that I would like to take a moment to say this. There is nothing in the Bible that says a woman cannot pass the offering plate, there is nothing that says she cannot pass the communion plate, there is nothing that says she cannot give a meditation. The 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 passage: Paul is not saying woman should not teach, he says later in Titus 2:4 to teach younger women and even commanded Lois and Eunice for teaching Timothy. (2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-15). Paul also knew and approved of Priscilla teaching Apollos (Acts 18:2, 26). Paul is not saying that woman cannot teach, he is saying woman should not speak authoritative public preaching, they cannot be "primary teachers of ministry."

After reading this I was like ....wait....what if I decide to go out to the mission field. Like I buy my plane ticket and right now leave and go to Thailand. (I will go there some day!!!!) While I am in Thailand, I start talking to people. One or two at first..then more gather...and more...and more, until eventually I have a crowd of people that come and listen to me speak God's words. Would I not then be preaching?

The thing with these passages given to me is that it all depends on how you interpret them. This thing, can get you in a whole lot of trouble or save you from trouble. The biggest question that I have has been based off of a thought process I have had for about 2 years now and it is this: How do you interpret a "rule" in the Bible accurately, and by extension, if a sin is what separates you from God, then it follows that you cannot commit a sin without knowing it. So you you misinterpret a "rule" in the Bible, is it still a sin? While thinking about this, it also made me wonder if God has precise written laws for everyone in every circumstance, or if the law comes through the spirit to each individual person, and it is basically just down to a series of choices throughout your life between right and wrong. Which if you follow Christ by doing what is right, this means that even if you do sincerely misinterpret the written law you are still not sinning since sin is a choice that separates yourself from God through disobedience, and you do not choose when your brain makes logical mistakes. ---
So you are not harming your relationship with God in any way. It is certainly important to always seek truth, so if you are very very wrong and your misinterpretation is problematic in someway, then by seeking truth you are eventually going to correct yourself. Even so, there are some things even the best Christians cannot agree on, so if you disagree with this than it is okay, but for a human to say "This action is always a sin" is to presume that you know everyone else's heart and mind and relationship with God.

I think to fully see the picture one must look at the nature of sin and separation as defined through Genesis 1-3. The Hermeneutical Circle may also help. Basically picture a spiral, your start is Bible reading. As you read you start on the outer edged then as you read more and more and practice what you read you move further in. Eventually it becomes tighter and tighter until you reach the center. At the center is the proper interpretation/knowing of God.

As of the moment, this is all I have. I is a long process and I hope to one day come to a conclusion. Until then I hope that I have sparked an interest in you to think about this as well. x

Home

 I am home for the summer. I should be happy about that right? I should be excited and filled with joy. I get to spend time with my family that is never home. I get to see all the people who I went to college to get away from for like 3 months. I should embrace everyone I have missed while being away. Tell them just how much I missed their faces, or how glad I am to see them. But, I am not. I am not happy to be home, I am not happy to be back in this dreadful town, I left for a reason. If it was not for my one friend, I would have not come back. It is amazing how much one person can affect the choices you decided to make in life. I have been back a week and am already counting down the days until I can go back. 102 days if you would like to know.

Since I have been back, I have had about 8 phone calls, each asking the same question; “Are you going to walk with your class?” To each I respond, “no.” They were all followed by the same response, “why.” I gave the first truth, I was told by the principle I was not allowed to walk with them. Which...I did not really care, I was not going to show up anyway. That seemed to work until my parents asked why. They do not know much of what happened in school or what I have done so I basically told them this: “I left for a reason, I do not like the people in my class, I cannot stand them, I want nothing to do with them.” My dad could care less, my Mum was a little upset but she got over it. I am my own class technically. Class of 2014 ½.

I would like to say I am one of those kids that has the perfect relationship with there parents, but I am not. When I was younger they were heavily involved in my life, once I hit 4^th grade, I began to shut them out, I shut out everyone. I continued this all the way up until now. There are things I cannot bring myself to tell them. There are things I do not want to talk to them about. If they ask a question, I'll answer, it may not be the answer they want to hear or the answer they expected. Coming home occasionally throughout the semester, they began to realize just how much I have 'grown up.' It is not that I have grown up, it is that I just gave up. I am tired of trying to act like there is nothing wrong, if something is wrong or I disagree, I say something about it.

This month and the past month has kind of sucked for me. I have been dreading this summer because I know what it will entitle. Work...work...and...more work. Not that work is bad, I mean I can get a car and hopefully pay some on the bloody loan I had to take out in order to attend school this year. I am currently attending college in hopes of receiving a bachelor in Youth and Family Ministry, but with the way things are going and the things that I have been told, I feel as if my major and study are pointless. I always understood that women could not be preachers. In the Bible it says not to let a woman hold an authoritative position in the church.

I called my church towards the beginning of April and asked if I could give a communion meditation. My preacher said it would be fine, my youth minister said he saw nothing wrong with it, but the church elders said “no.” Not going to lie, I did feel a little hurt, but I did not take it personal. I was told by the elder that the communion meditation was an authoritative position. He backed this up by saying it was a place he saw for teaching and during this time, it would be giving me authority over men in the church. I did not agree with his statement, but out of respect I let it drop and quietly walked downstairs to my class. This did not shake me at first, I kind of brushed it off at first. I had friend's from school with me that weekend so I did not want them to see me upset. I pushed it off and pushed it off until it basically began to just creep in my thoughts and eat me. I began to think about everything going on in my church the good and the bad. I began to think about positions and what I could and could not do in the church. I grew up working audio/sound for the church and for youth group, as I got older, I began helping with Wee Worship, and even Children's Church. I know this counts as serving, but there is nothing in the Bible that says a woman cannot pass the plate during offering or communion. There is nothing that says a woman cannot give a meditation. I apologize if I sound like a feminist, I promise I am not. My thing is, I plan and feel called to be a Youth and Family Minister, how can I do that if I cannot give a communion meditation? The more I compared church to the church in Acts, the more upset I became. What has happened to the church today?

On a different, more interesting note, I do get to go back home for a full week this year!! I am super excited for that, I cannot remember the last time I got to stay more than 5 days in my home state of Michigan. Right now, that seems to be the only good thing I have going for me this summer unless I can find a time to run back up to school to see some friends. Hopefully that will happen, looking forward to at least one day of disk golf and just catching up over what part of the summer has passed. I feel as if I live a double life almost. Here back home, I am the quiet reclusive person that hides in their quietly playing on the keyboard or strumming on the guitar. I leave to go to work where I just do my job and listen to music, then come home to go back to my room. At school, I am a tad bit more social. I can joke around a bit, I have a couple of friends that I really connect with and can talk to easily. I spend time with people and actually enjoy it. Sometimes it is just me laying there listening to them type as they write a paper or talk to themselves in order to study. Whoever said that people need to socialize in order to hangout was wrong. Sometimes just being in the presence of a really good friend and saying absolutely nothing is the best thing. For me anyway.

Well, I think I am done boring you with my rants. Maybe I'll find something other than my boring life to blog about. Chances of that happening are slim, who knows...maybe you will get something or learn something. I hope to do some deep theological blogs in the future, but the chances of that actually happening are well probably good. I have all summer.... 102 more days before I go back to school, surely I will be doing some reading in that time...anyway, have a fantastic day! x