Sports and their fans are an interesting phenomenon. They are mock wars; our forces against your forces. The forces have specific colors, banners, chants, music, shouts, and sometimes just a great amount of noise around them.
In a war, when your side is winning or has won, you are encircled with joyful noise. The noise is used to intimidate the enemy, celebrate victory, and energize the warriors as it spirals ever upward and energy creates more energy.
(more…)
My family hops into the van (sometimes rather frantically) on Sunday mornings and buckle up for the ride through our small city to church. On the way down our street and around the corner we see knocked over trash cans, random articles of clothing, and maybe a stray pit-bull roaming the back alleys. Our town is in desperate need of renovation. The kids have a hard time comprehending the state of our city, but my wife and I know that the blue, brick house we just passed was busted last night for drugs, the boarded up duplex was once a meth lab, and the neighborhood barber shop near Queen St. closed its doors for good just a week or two ago. But every other Sunday I will holler to the back of the van, “Where are we going?” My son replies, “To heaven.”
Israel’s return to Jerusalem after her captivity is recorded in Psalm 126, a psalm of ascent. These psalms of ascent were often sung as the people of Israel made their walk up to the temple mount to worship the Lord. In the first verse of this psalm (126) the Psalmist says, “We were like those who dream.” Have you ever tried to picture what that looked like? I imagine the puffy, red eyes of my sons as I look in the rearview mirror on that Sunday drive. They still glimmer with the dreams from just a few hours ago. Jacob’s dream at Bethel in Genesis 28 has come to mind many times as my family has stumbled into the van on Sunday mornings. What did Jacob say after he took his nap on the rock at Bethel? “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Surely the Lord is in this city, but do we know it? Does this city know it?
If you’ve read the bible at all, you’d know that dreams are rather important and are often prophetic (Gen. 37; Dan. 2; Acts 2:17). Jacob’s dream is no different in this respect. He arrives at a city named Luz on his way to Haran and stops because the sun had set. He grabs a rock as a pillow and begins to sleep. Jacob dreams of a ladder between heaven and earth, the angels of God ascending and descending on it, and a voice from the Lord above saying that He will grant Jacob descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth – the whole earth will be blessed through him. The Lord had met with Jacob at Bethel; He had made that place a portal to heaven itself. So, it would make sense for Jacob to name it “house of God”. You’d expect to find God in His own house. And it would also make sense that Jacob would be forever changed by that experience. I can imagine him rubbing his sleepy, wearied eyes in the morning eventually revealing a face glowing with excitement. It is quite the dream after all.
Many-a-theologian have pointed out that the ladder in Jacob’s dream is a picture of our Lord Jesus, the bridge between man and God (earth and heaven). This is true, of course. But it is also true that Jacob is a picture of Jesus. It is no coincidence that Jacob lays his head on a rock, that he rests, and that his dream shows a portal between heaven and earth. Jesus’s tomb, in which He rested His wearied head in death, was hewn out of rock and covered with a stone (Matt. 27:60). The rocky mountain in Jerusalem was the site of the Lord’s House built by Solomon (1 Chron. 28). Jesus said that no stone would be left unturned in this temple’s destruction and that He’d raise it up in three days (John 2). Jesus is the Temple built on a rock; He is the rock itself (the chief cornerstone). He is the source of our rest from labor and weariness (Matt. 11:28). In Him we awake from our slumber of death. In Him we ascend into the heavenly places and sit at the right hand of God the Father (Eph. 2:6). He is the portal between heaven and earth. And if Christ is the true Jacob, surely His body is as well.
The fourth commandment requires the Church to rest on the Sabbath and to keep it holy. Have you ever thought of that command in this light? Our Lord commands that you rest in the worship of the Church. He not only commands you to rest, but He wants you to dream. Every week our Lord calls us into His house to sleep, to rest from our troubles. He puts us to sleep with the confession of sin – putting to death the old man and creating you anew. He speaks to you from the heavenly places in His Word and declares the promise that this whole earth will be covered with the blessing of His salvation. Just as he promised Jacob, He gives you bread to eat (Gen. 28:20); He serves you heavenly food. And He awakens you to a new life in which you know God even more. The worship of God’s people is a heavenly dream.
As we leave the heavenly domain of the liturgy, we often rub our eyes, give a good stretch (maybe a yawn), and forget what we just dreamed. We are a forgetful bunch. We get our families packed back in our vans and head down main street. Back to earth we go. We pass the knocked over trash cans, the empty shopping carts, and the same drug addicts on their stoops. Do we remember the voice of our Lord? Do we remember His words? Can we still see the dream? Heaven meeting earth, descendants spreading throughout the world, all families being blessed, an earth calling for redemption – for rest. Your neighbors need to see those puffy, red eyes of one who just saw heaven. They need hope. They need rest from their weary lives of sin and death. The sun may have set in our city, but there are still those who dream. There are still those who meet with God. God is most certainly in our city, but there are still those who don’t know it yet.
This heavenly dream that you enter each week is not just meant for you. It is meant for your street, your block, your city. This dream should be proclaimed in the town square, in board meetings, at homeschool co-ops, and city council meetings. Our lives should be marked with the rest of God. So, when you load up to head home from church on Sunday, crack your back, fix your hair, and live like you believe that heavenly vision. Because one day this whole earth, your city included, will be God’s house of rest and dreams.
My son yells from the back of the van, “Where are we going now, dad?” The correct answer is, “Back to earth, son. But we’re taking heaven with us.”
It would have been almost impossible to imagine a few months ago that we would be where we are today. Viruses and viral police stories have become the catalysts to bring to the surface deeper spiritual issues within the culture. Equally difficult is to anticipate all the ways these crises will affect our life and culture in the days to come. One of the interesting effects of COVID-19 up to this point is the way in which we gather to worship as God’s people. Not only has it forced us to worship differently as the body of Christ, but it has stirred many questions regarding the way in which we are to worship. Living in a nation that was built upon the principle of religious freedom, the church in America has not had to wrestle much with the tension between faithfulness to God in worship and obedience to the State as citizens. That tension is quickly and inevitably tightening.
A recent example of this growing antithesis can be found, unsurprisingly, in California. It started several weeks ago with the suggestion from various sources that Christians should consider not singing within the corporate worship gatherings. The suggestion itself was not altogether surprising given the ignorance and obstinacy of the culture. But the fact that some churches and individual Christians actually considered such a suggestion should have been astounding. Now the soft, steady beat of suggestion and persuasion has risen to sound more like the drums of war.
Speaking of war, I am the first to caution my brothers and sisters in Christ against the temptation to fight every battle, to make every bump a hill to die on. If Christ indeed rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to sit down at the right hand of the Father, if He is truly and presently ruling over all creation as King of kings and Lord of lords, then I think Christians should respond to the worldings around us from a position of strength. We have the high ground of truth. We are not called to live in a defensive position, reacting to the thorns and thistles that poke and prod us as we go.
So when someone, well-meaning or otherwise, suggests to us that maybe refraining from singing in our worship services would be wise and considerate, the proper response should be nothing more than a dismissive chuckle. It should be the same kind of response you would give to the suggestion that air-borne illnesses would disappear if we all just started holding our breath.
For the Christian, one who is not only created in the image of the Triune God but is being conformed into the image of the Son and is indwelt by the life-giving Spirit, singing is as natural as breathing. We should no more be able to stop singing than fish can stop swimming. If you see a fish that is no longer swimming, it is not going to be a fish very much longer. Its fish-life is either ebbing away or gone altogether. Christians sing together because it is in our very nature to do so. To cease from singing is to cease from being. I don’t care how ridiculous that might sound to the “wise fools” who pretend to sit in judgment over such things.
However, there are fights worth fighting. There are hills upon which we can and must be willing to die. And when silly suggestions grow into perverse requirements, the people of God must remain steadfast in our faith, knowing that compromise and capitulation to our thornbush leaders would result in the life being choked out of us. a If you want to know what that looks like, there’s a great little parable about it in Judges 9. Therefore, as we anticipate the fight before us, here are a few things to consider.
First, we must fight out of love for Christ and in a way that loves our enemies. This is a tricky one for us in the current cultural climate. There are many voices in these conflicts that are antagonistic to the truth. Some are deceptive in nature, speaking in ways that tickle the ears of the culture for their own gain. Others are deceived in their motives. They think they are actually loving people by what they stand up for or affirm, but their words are empty of life.
At the same time, we who love the truth can also fall into a deceptive trap. We can become more enamored with winning the fight than pleasing God in the struggle. If the false prophets are shouting, we will shout even louder. We can become motivated out of frustration at losing rather than maintaining faithfulness to God. And we can easily end up fighting worldliness with self-righteousness rather than simply being bold witnesses to His justice and mercy.
Jesus commanded his disciples to live in such a way that others would see their good works and become worshippers of God themselves. b Our ultimate desire as Christians is not to sing and praise God loud enough to drown out the cries of our enemies. Our desire is to worship in such a way that God would overcome our enemies by His grace and they would join the loud refrain.
Second, we need to remember that conflicts are gifts from Christ for the good of His church. It can be easy for us to get all worked up in a righteous frenzy when we feel the squeeze. It is helpful to be reminded that in every conflict there is opportunity for growth. In every crisis there is opportunity for clarity. These are God-given moments in the washing and beautifying of Christ’s bride. Let us not waste these trials, but use them to increase the depth, passion, quality, frequency, unity, and diversity of our singing together. There is much fruit to be gained here across all denominations and traditions.
Third, we must sing out of a clear understanding and deep appreciation of our history and our future. Not only is singing a part of our nature as God’s image-bearers, c but singing has been a primary means by which we praise and magnify who God is and what He has done from the beginning.
We find Adam poetically expressing his delight in God’s gift of Eve after being resurrected by Him from the death-like sleep. d We find Moses and the sons of Israel singing a song following the exodus of God’s people out of Egypt. e This song would be sung generation after generation to remind them of God’s faithfulness and power. It was a corporate preservative of their identity as a people chosen by Yahweh and called out of bondage to worship Him.
Creation itself is commanded to sing to its Creator in response to God’s redemptive actions toward His people. “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.” f The Psalms command us again and again to sing to the Lord, g and as we do so in the assembly, it reorients our thoughts and affections rightly as the covenant community of the Risen Christ. h
And at the final consummation of the age when Christ comes again to bring to completion the new heavens and new earth, we find the saints singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. i
These are difficult and unusual times to be sure. The church is not without its challenges and concerns ahead. But it has always been this way and will continue until that final day when all presence of sin is eradicated from our midst and the bride of Christ stands in all her perfected beauty radiantly reflecting the glory of her Groom. Until then, we must remain “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” j Singing is an indispensable part of that work. We sing in victory, we sing in tragedy, we sing in the light, we sing in the dark, we sing as a means of warfare, we sing in expectation of peace. We will sing the great story of redemptive history from generation to generation, and we will continue to sing into eternity when time no longer matters.
David owed him nothing. He was the grandson of an enemy who tried to kill him several times. Now David’s enemy has been put down. Saul, the king of Israel, is dead, and David has acceded the throne as he was promised through the anointing hand of the prophet Samuel years ago. Most of Saul’s house was dead as well, including his son, Jonathan, who was David’s friend. But there was one member of the house remaining: Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth.
Though lame in both of his feet (2Sm 9.3, 13) and living in “Nowhere” or “Nothing” (Lo-debar; 2Sm 9.5), the blood of Saul still ran through his veins, and there were still some in Israel who might be loyal to the house of Saul. Because of this, Mephibosheth was a rival to the throne. Among the kings of the nations, it would have been common practice and completely understandable to eliminate the last vestiges of Saul’s house so that the potential for a coup would be stopped before it was started. David could even justify this by saying that he was creating peace.
(more…)
We are in the midst of a revolution. Societal structures are being overturned and a new order of government is taking over. Old symbols of tyranny are being toppled. The way we live in relationship with one another is being redefined. Our understandings of what constitutes justice and peace are being reshaped. Language itself is being transformed. Logic and rationality are being turned upside down so that not just what we think but how we think are being radically transformed.
This is what happens in revolution because a revolution is the overturning of one culture and the creation of another.
(more…)
Pentecost, while unique, does not stand alone. The work of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost is a continuation of the work he began in Christ Jesus himself. Luke alludes to this union created by the Spirit between Christ Jesus and his body, the church, when he opens up his second volume, Acts: “In the first book [Luke’s Gospel], O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach….” (Ac 1.1) The work of Jesus continues through the Spirit in the church.
The union becomes clearer when Luke sets the historical context for the pouring out of the Spirit. He tells us that the Spirit is poured out when “the day of Pentecost had fully come.” (Ac 2.1) Pentecost itself was nothing new to the Jews. The Feast of Pentecost was one of the three major feasts at which all the males of Israel were to appear before the Lord each year (Ex 23.10-19; Lev 23; Dt 16.1-17). Pentecost was feast dependent upon Passover/Unleavened Bread. The name itself, Pentecost or Feast of Weeks, tells us this. The day of the Feast of Pentecost was measured by an event that happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The day after the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the first day of the week, a firstfruits sheaf of grain was presented to the Lord. This was the beginning of the wheat harvest. From that day seven Sabbaths were counted. On the day after the seventh Sabbath, the first day of the week and fifty days from the presentation of the sheaf of firstfruits, was the Feast of Pentecost. (Pentecost means “fifty.”) Pentecost marked the end of the wheat harvest. The wheat harvest that began during the Feast of Unleavened Bread came to its completion and was presented at Pentecost. One harvest from start to finish. (Paul makes a big deal about this in 1Corinthians 15 when talking about Jesus’ resurrection and ours.)
(more…)
When Jesus reveals himself to John on the isle of Patmos, he is holding seven stars in his right hand. (Rev 1.16) These seven stars are the angels or messengers of the seven churches (Rev 1.20) to whom Jesus will speak in chapters 2 and 3. These angels are not spirit angels but pastors of the churches. They are the ones to whom Jesus speaks directly, who are then expected to deliver his message to the churches and deal with the issues he addresses.
Symbolizing the pastors as stars is not incidental. Describing pastors as stars isn’t an empty image. Stars have a long history of governing in Scripture; a history that begins in Genesis 1. Stars, along with the sun and moon, are the lights in the firmament-heaven for “signs and festival times.” They are set up to rule the earth. (Gen 1.14-19) When Abraham was promised that his children would be as the stars in heaven, (Gen 15.5) that promise included ruling the earth. Jacob, his wife, and their sons were sun, moon, and stars in Joseph’s dream in which Joseph rules them all (Gen 37.9-11). When Isaiah describes the fall of Babylon, the rulers that will fall are stars (Isa 13.10).
(more…)
In Rule 11 of non-Christian Jungian psychologist Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life, Peterson talks about how boys playing games with girls is not beneficial for boys. A girl can move up within the female hierarchy when she competes with and wins against other girls or boys. However, a boy only moves up in the eyes of his male peers when he competes with and wins against other boys. Competing against a girl puts him in an awkward position to begin with. What is he doing challenging or accepting the challenge of a girl? If he wins, he should have because he’s a guy, and guys shouldn’t lose to girls. He gains no respect from his male peers and may even be disrespected because he “beat up on a girl.” If he loses, he loses all respect from his male peers. He will never live it down. Men are created to protect women, not war with them physically or verbally.
It may seem inappropriate to bring a non-Christian Jungian psychologist to a debate about Scriptural truth, but what Peterson communicates fits the present situation. Aimee Byrd, in her recent book, Recovering From Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, challenges the church’s male-only ordained leaders to examine themselves. A truth that is intrinsic to our creation and recognized by Peterson but seemingly not recognized by Byrd is that this puts male theologians and pastors like me who review her book in a place to receive quite a bit unjustified unfriendly fire. The reactions are visceral because of the way God created the sexes to relate. If we disagree with Byrd, Byrd is a female martyr and we are misogynistic. Men shouldn’t be “attacking” a woman. Social media will explode with all sorts of condolences for her and condemnations for the patriarchy that “attacked” her. If we agree with Byrd, we forfeit historic and (I believe) Scriptural positions of the church in the area of intersexual dynamics within the world and the church. Men tend not to treat women the same as other men, generally speaking, when it comes to games or debates. We know that we will draw the ire of both female and male feminists, and, quite frankly, sometimes it’s just not worth the hassle.
Because I believe that this book has the potential to be influential in a church culture already rife with feminist tendencies, I enter this fray with a few other men who have gone before me to review this book. Byrd’s title and content reveal her ax to grind with the Counsel of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). Andrew David Naselli’s review does a good job answering Byrd’s critique of CBMW’s positions as well as pointing out biblical flaws in her work. Mark Jones’s review is quite deferential but shows several errors in the way Byrd constructs her biblical-theological approach to the issues of intersexual relationships. (Scot McKnight will, no doubt, be seen as a champion for women because of his endorsement in the book blurb and his review in Christianity Today.)
As these men point out, there are glaring omissions in Byrd’s treatment of the subject. Byrd doesn’t deal with many of the Scriptural passages that address head-on the issues of intersexual relationships in the world and church. This may be because she believes that this is a simplistic “Biblicist” approach.
Biblicists emphasize proof texting [sic] over a comprehensive biblical theology. What often happens unintentionally is that the Biblicist readers become their own authority, since they often don’t notice they are also looking through their own lens of preconceived theological assumptions. Indeed, this is something we all need to be aware of in our Bible interpretations. The troubling teaching of biblical manhood and womanhood has thrived under this rubric of popular Biblicist interpretive methods. (159)
Apparently, Byrd’s biblical-theological approach is so advanced that it can omit key passages that deal directly with these issues. There is no discussion of 1Timothy 2 or 1Corinthians 11. There is a treatment of 1Corinthians 14 and the issue of women keeping silent in church, which she turns on its head by saying that women really can speak in the gathered assembly in some type of leadership in the worship service as long as it is not the sermon. The command to “let them ask their husbands at home” is conveniently left out of the exegesis. (231-2)
The reviews by Naselli and Jones do a good job pointing out the obvious deficiencies of RBMW. My review will overlap theirs at points, but I want to deal with what I see as some of the more fundamental, presuppositional issues of intersexual relationships throughout creation and in the church.
Whose House Are We In?
If you are familiar with the book at all, by this time you know about the yellow wallpaper, a trope she uses throughout the book. As she explains in the Introduction, the image comes from a nineteenth-century novella by Charlotte Perkins Gilman entitled, The Yellow Wallpaper. The wallpaper is a metaphor for the hermeneutical structures and strictures that determine the way we have understood the place of women, “the female voice,” in Scripture, and, thus, in the church. Byrd’s mission is to peel away the yellow wallpaper that distorts our understanding.
As mentioned in the quote earlier, Byrd acknowledges that we all come to the Scriptures with our “own lens of preconceived theological assumptions,” and for that reason, we need to take care in approaching the Scriptures and be ready to have those assumptions changed. I whole-heartedly agree with that sentiment. But that forces us to ask the question, With what preconceived theological assumptions is Byrd approaching the text?
Byrd gives her history with CBMW’s literature and trying to be a godly woman in light of what she learned from these men. Her assumptions changed. She triangulates herself above the fray now, being neither complementarian nor egalitarian. (121) The reader is asked to believe that Byrd has no wallpaper of her own anymore; that she is looking at the Scriptures through purely objective eyes. But the reader must ask, How much has literature such as The Yellow Wallpaper, written by a feminist, affected Byrd’s view of Scripture? How much has the general American feminist milieu colored Byrd’s thinking? Many of the views she espouses share much more in common with egalitarian feminism than they do with the historic Christian church’s interpretation of the callings of men and women. Byrd has her own wallpaper.
Battle For The Center?
In an attempt to prove to the radical feminists that God’s word is not an “androcentric text that lacks female contribution,” (91) Byrd directs the reader to hear the “female voice” of Scripture through figures such as Ruth, Deborah, Huldah, and others. She strives to prove that the male and female voices “operate synergetically in Scripture” (94, 126) as opposed to being at war with one another. However, her approach to prove synergism is to adopt language that pits the voices against one another.
Borrowing primarily from Richard Bauckham, Byrd speaks of the Scriptures in terms of gynocentric versus androcentric voices. (51) Throughout Part 1, she refers to “gynocentric interruptions” in an “androcentric” text when the stories of women such as Ruth (chapter 2) or the Canaanite woman (88) are told. All of these women are “overturning stereotypes.” (e.g., 90)
Though she wants to show how men’s and women’s voices work together, with the “centric” and “interruption” language, she is leaving the reader with this civil war of the sexes. Men’s voices dominate and the women have to “interrupt.” At best this leaves the reader confused as to whether or not men and women in Scripture are at war with one another or if they do work synergistically as Byrd proposes. At worst, Byrd disproves her own point by the language she uses, leaving the reader to think that women are oppressed and must fight–even in Scripture–to have their voices heard.
The concerns for the female voice being heard in the church are Byrd’s primary concern. This is done through teaching. “Any divinely ordained differences that men and women have do not prohibit women from teaching. It would be disobedient to Scripture to withhold women from teaching.” (174) Make no mistake about it, what she means by this is that she believes women ought to be able to teach adult men. That is the way the female voice is truly heard. She leaves the reader with the sense that women being relegated to teaching children and other women is some sort of inferior teaching. “While some give the nod for women to teach other women and children, they are sending the message that this is ancillary work to be done.” (188) Are they “sending the message,” or is that only what she is thinking? What if women, because of their God-given nature as women, are generally better than men at teaching children and other women? Is that a deficiency or just a difference?
Must a woman formally teach men to have the female voice heard in the church? Were not the female voices of Lois and Eunice heard through Timothy as tradents of the faith? (2Tim 1.5) Are not older women specifically exhorted to teach younger women how to be good wives and manage their homes? (Titus 2.3-5) Is there any married pastor who is not influenced by his wife in his teaching ministry? Byrd leaves the impression that if women aren’t able to teach men, then the church is an oppressive patriarchy, squashing the female voice. Just because women aren’t able to do exactly what Byrd thinks they ought to be able to do, doesn’t mean that the female voice doesn’t contribute to the work of the church. I’m sure that there are outlier churches that completely squash female voices, but I’m not aware of any conservative churches that “withhold women from teaching.” I’m not even certain that is possible, considering the fact that mothers and wives have tremendous power with children and husbands.
Women have tremendous power. The adage, “the hand the rocks the cradle rules the world” has much truth in it. The female voice is heard throughout the church. It doesn’t have to be heard in one specific area of teaching adult men to be heard.
The tenor of Byrd’s book exudes a battle for equality … in everything but the pastorate. She rightly concludes that men, and men only, should be ordained representatives of Christ in the preaching of the Scriptures. (231) Of course, everything else in leading the liturgy should be open to females (except the pastoral prayer of the church, 232 n. 54). Much of this push for equality derives from her conclusions drawn from certain linguistics describing certain women in the church. Paul speaks of women as participating with him in the ministry, giving them special status. (149) Byrd spends a great deal of time on Phoebe, whom Byrd assumes Paul entrusts with the explanation of the letter to the church of Rome. (146-51; 213ff.) She also speaks of Junia as an apostle. (223ff.; Naselli deals well with this in his review) Paul uses the same verb translated “work hard” about women as he does his own ministry. Because Paul uses similar words to speak about himself and women, because he speaks about Euodia and Syntyche as laboring side by side with him in the gospel (Phil 4.2-3), the reader is to assume, I suppose, that Paul has eradicated various callings for the sexes. So, if they “work hard” in the gospel as Paul does, does that mean that they occupy the same calling in the church? If Junia is actually a woman and is called an apostle in Romans 16, might that mean something different for a female than it does a male? If we look at those avoided passages in 1Timothy 2 and 1Corinthians 11 where the same apostle is speaking, we learn that he doesn’t commend women to occupy the same callings as men. They are … dare I say it … complementary. Women labor as women. Men labor as men. Both are working toward our common mission, but both must stay in their lanes.
Transcending The Sexes?
We are, indeed, working toward a common mission. Byrd affirms this by speaking of our joint telos. (111) She follows this up by saying, “However, this is not an androgynous calling.” (111) Both egalitarians and complementarians are critiqued in their views of the sexes. Because egalitarians don’t recognize distinctions, women feel undervalued because there is no development of the distinct masculine and feminine contributions. Complementarians set up femininity and masculinity as something to strive for in itself. Byrd shows us a more excellent way: a transcendent sexuality.
Several times she speaks of “transcending” our genders or sexuality. Jesus did it (122), and we should too. Quoting Andrew Bartlett approvingly, Byrd writes, Does your church witness to the fact that ‘relationships in the church are shaped by the new creation,’ where ‘created gender distinctions remain in existence, but are also transcended’?” (231) Indeed, “There are no exhortations in Scripture for men to be masculine and women to be feminine. As the Roman Catholic theologian Dietrich Von Hildebrand points out, the calling for both man and woman, our telos, is ‘to be transformed in Christ, to become holy and glorify God, and to reach eternal communion with God…. The specific tone of masculinity and femininity must appear by itself’ as we strive together toward this same mission.” (111) “We are not directed to biblical manhood nor biblical womanhood; we are directed to Christ. Our aim is to behold Christ, as his bride, as fellow sons in the Son.” (132) We need a communion between males and females that is “platonic–intimate but nonerotic.” [sic] (172) We are being prepared for eternal communion with the triune God and one another, (109, 233) and it appears that transcends our sexuality.
Don’t get Byrd wrong. Males and females have “distinct relational responsibilities that color our discipleship. Men will never be daughters, sisters, aunts, wives, or mothers. Women will never be sons, brothers, uncles, husbands, or fathers.” (116, emphasis mine) Even though males and females are colored by their sexuality in discipleship, masculinity and femininity are cultural constructs, not commands in Scripture (111). She agrees with Mark Cortez that there are cultural norms that are associated with our gender that should not be considered essential to our sexuality. (123)
What does transcended sexuality look like? If it is not some form of androgyny, then what is it?
By deconstructing the whole “masculine-feminine” paradigm while still upholding a distinction between the sexes, Byrd reduces the difference between men and women to physiology. Male = masculine and female = feminine are tautologies. “I simply am feminine because I am female.” (114) “I don’t need to act like a woman; I actually am a woman.” (120, emphasis original) The result of this little trick is to eliminate the distinctive responsibilities of men and women. Oh sure, our maleness or femaleness “colors” our discipleship. One is a sperm donor and the other provides a womb for gestation and glands for nursing, but those are the accidents but not the essence of our existence; they “color” our discipleship, but they are not specific callings into which we are to grow. In some sense, we need to grow out of them.
So, if everything a man does is masculine, how does Paul’s characterization of men as “effeminate” in 1Corinthians 6.9-10 fit into this construct? What does Paul mean when, in 1Corinthians 16.13, he says literally, “Act like a man?” (Byrd prefers other translations such as “be courageous,” “valiant,” or “brave.” 112) Must men act a certain way that is truly manly? If everything a man does is masculine by definition, why characterize certain behaviors as acting like a man and others as being non-manly?
If it is true that men are called to act in certain ways that are considered manly or masculine, then would it not also be true that women must act in certain ways that would be considered womanly or feminine? Would these ways of acting not correspond with the creation and commands for the woman just as they do for the man? The attempt to deconstruct masculine and feminine into biological realities apart from responsibilities, or making masculine and feminine merely cultural constructs that don’t have the weight of Scriptural responsibilities is anti-Scriptural and dangerous.
Though Byrd would have us believe that we are not commanded to grow toward biblical manhood or Biblical womanhood, (132) I must ask, Are Christian virtues asexual? Does love, faithfulness, et al. look different in a woman than it does a man? Christian virtues are embodied in males and females differently. Of course, there is overlap between the two, but they express themselves beautifully in our different orientations toward God, one another, and the world around us.
For instance, Byrd speaks of how she is a fierce protector (125-6). I don’t doubt it. Women are protectors, but they are not protectors in the same way men are protectors. Women protect children, and men protect women. This is the way God set things up in Genesis. This is also why it upsets sports and the military to go coed. Add a female to the situation with males, no matter how much she wants to be treated as an equal, she won’t be. You, the reader, know this instinctively. It is a created part of us to the smallest strand of DNA in our bodies. It can’t be transcended into some semi-gnostic functional androgyny.
Seeking to show our equality before God through our culpability in sin, Byrd addresses the fact that Eve was “equally culpable for her sin, as God directly addressed her.” (116) “Equally culpable” is tricky. Yes, Eve was culpable for her sin, but she is not culpable in the same way as Adam. Adam failed his responsibility as a man, leaving Eve vulnerable to be deceived. Eve committed a sin of inadvertency or being led astray. Adam committed a high-handed sin. Because of Adam’s responsibility as a man, it is through him that sin and death entered the world, not through the woman (Rom 5.12). The man and the woman are judged differently based on their created and commanded differences, and the sins of each have consequences corresponding to their sins. The woman’s consequences correspond to her calling in child-bearing and in relationship to the man. The man’s consequences correspond to his orientation to the world. (Gen 3.16-19) Is each responsible for his and her sin? Yes. But the sin and its consequences correspond to the calling of males and females as males and females.
The promise of redemption is the restoration and glorification of the man and the woman, not the transcending of their sexuality into a communion that virtually eliminates the distinctions. The beauty is in the differences. Our sexualities are neither an immaturity that we must eventually transcend nor a remnant of sin that must be eliminated.
These created differences between us orient us toward the world in different ways, both needed to complete our common mission. While our differences do speak to our callings as husbands and wives directly, they also speak to our broader responsibilities in our dominion mandate. We know that our created differences establish a certain order in the church. Paul says this clearly in 1Timothy 2.8-15 and 1Corinthians 11.2-16. Even though, as Byrd rightly says, not all women are to submit to all men, (105) the world is gloriously patriarchal. The Man, Christ Jesus, is Lord of the world. His bride, the church, rules with him, but does so as the bride and not as the husband. Jesus hears the feminine voice, but he gets the final say (cf.107).
This patriarchal structure that governs the new creation is to be imaged in the world. Men should be leading societies, the church, and the home. Isaiah says that when women and children lead, that is an indication that a society is being punished. (Isa 3.12) Men are created to be oriented to the creation in a way that women are not. Women are created to be oriented toward men in a way that men are not oriented toward women. (1Cor 11.8-9) This is creation glorified, not transcended.
Because a woman can do something doesn’t mean that she ought to do it any time or in any space she wants. The same goes for a man. We have God-given lanes to stay in to use the abilities God has given us in the structures in which he has commanded us to use them. Not to stay in our lanes as men and women will be debilitating to our kingdom mission. Consequently, we don’t need to recover from biblical manhood and womanhood. We need to grow into and delight in the beauty of them.
Despite her best efforts to distance herself from egalitarianism, Byrd, in the end, practically promotes a baptized version of egalitarianism. In the end, I don’t think Byrd has a good eye for redecorating the church, so she needs to be careful about ripping down wallpaper in the church.
Jewish Christians were facing difficult times and, consequently, difficult decisions. Between thirty and thirty-five years before, Jesus told them that Jerusalem and her temple were going to be destroyed within a generation. When armies surrounded Jerusalem, Jesus’ disciples were to flee the city (Lk 21.5ff.; cf. also Matt 24; Mk 13). But this was their home. They were Jews. Their families would pressure them to be patriotic and stand with them against the invading Roman armies. If they didn’t stand with their countrymen, then they deserved to be persecuted in severe ways.
The time had come when all that Jesus said was coming to pass. Either just before the invasion began or at the beginning of Rome’s campaign against Jerusalem, the epistle to the Hebrews was written. Jewish Christians were warned against apostasy, being encouraged to persevere through these dangerous times. One of the signs of their perseverance in the faith was their continuing to assemble as the church for worship. They are commanded in Hebrews 10.24-25, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
(more…)
The absurdity in this COVID age is not simply that the government wishes to impose particular restraints in the life of the church without authority and violating sphere sovereignty, but that Christians are eager to support those policies and comply with them.
In the beginning there were examples of regulations against meeting in large numbers (understood in the early stages), then, upon setting guidelines for re-opening, certain city officials demanded that individual churches keep a private file for 30 days of all those who attended church (including entrance/exit time and other personal details); then, there were specific observations made to the effect that the Lord’s Supper was to be avoided for safety concerns.
Now, evangelical voices are siding with researchers on the dangers of aerosolized transmission in the church service. Scientists say that “It seems that the virus can spread in this manner; but we don’t know how infectious these tiny particles are.”
What’s the end result of all of this? That congregations should consider a ban on singing or that we should sing less and more quietly or that we delay the opening of church altogether (despite the green light of many officials that they can open) until a vaccine is available.
The rationale for such approach is one I have heard dozens and dozens of times through much of this conversation. It goes like this, “To love our neighbor is to not expose them to any potential risks of getting COVID, and therefore these measures however drastic are clear examples of our corporate commitment to love one another.”
Again, to stress the absolute obvious: precautions are good and prudent. People who are at high risk should take extra caution and religious leaders should offer extra grace. But now we are entering into the realm of the insane when the state (CDC, WHO, whomever) and even evangelical voices begin to demand for the sake of “love” that we retreat from our liturgical duties to appease the gods of the air.
The Church is giving in too much. The sign of our weakening is that the voices of doom from the outside are beginning to shake the very foundation of our faith within. Singing brings walls down, topples empires, brings fear to the devil, soothes the sick and hurting, establishes order and might I add is a marching order from the God who sings over us. Enough already! Singing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is probably the most needed medicine in the church today.
Kuyperian Commentary Podcast
