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