[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Way Community Church Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mission is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Darahal and I am the pastor of the Way Community Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to join us as a member or of you simply need prayer,
[SPEAKER_00]: or if you want to worship through giving, you can find the links and the transcription of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we're going to continue our series in title, where do we stand?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to look at the issue of women in leadership roles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to encourage you to follow along on the transcript of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grab your Bibles as we will study many passages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some that may be tough to read as we think out loud about how women should be embraced in leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's study
[SPEAKER_00]: It has often been said, and I understand the statement that a woman can't graze a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm saying that as the father of three sons, and I appreciate that there are certain things, really only I can teach my boys.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while I appreciate the spirit of that statement, which is to emphasize the need of male leadership in the lives of young boys,
[SPEAKER_00]: My testimony actually disproves that statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all know my story, I was born a teen parents and I lived in my nuclear family or the nucleus of my family was my grandmother who was in her mid-30s at the time of my birth, my mom and her younger sister.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these three women raised to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then my mom and I went to have three other children who were all girls, and so I was raised in the family of seven, and I was the only male and the family, and I am a living testimony that women can in fact teach a man how to be a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, to be sure, I have mentors, uncles who taught me things that the ladies didn't teach me, but the things of the heart, the matter of character, qualities like compassion, the ladies taught me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They taught me how to budget.
[SPEAKER_00]: They taught me how to fear the Lord and love the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly, they taught me how to play spades.
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned all this from my grandmother, my aunt, or my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they taught me with by applying the Board of Education to the rear end of understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was not called.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I thank them for that because they helped me be well adjusted to something I could not escape in my young life and that is responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even outside of my home in my church Elizabeth Baptist Church of the world was born and raised.
[SPEAKER_00]: My spiritual formation was heavily influenced by female leadership from the beginning of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The story is told to me of a woman named Margarita Batterl who was coming grabbed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a smaller, some of the babies we dedicated to date.
[SPEAKER_00]: and become, get me off my mama or grandma this lab and take me to what we call the and children's church, what we call now sees.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll never forget more to read battle because her glasses were as big as her smile.
[SPEAKER_00]: and both just portray a beautiful soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: Margarie battle taught me the word and the Lord when I was in the high to a grasshopper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I was raising Atlanta, so I went to public school all my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a product of Atlanta Public Schools.
[SPEAKER_00]: K through 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I'm with the Dean Rusk Elementary School.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with the Turner Middle School.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with the Gene Child Young Middle School, and I graduated from Maine's High School, and most of the women, most of the influences in those spaces were women.
[SPEAKER_00]: most of those who educated me, or even a administrator in those dynamics were women.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I appreciate the sentiment and I agree to an extent, but also we have many men like me who are proof of the opposite, right, that the right woman in leadership and your life can really help you become anything God has designed you to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so today we honor our women and my desire is to honor without pandering.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, my desire today is to respect without playcating.
[SPEAKER_00]: You all picking up what I'm putting down?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as on the side, this doesn't mean riff, and this is not on my notes, but it's in my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes the church can make a mistake of pandering to the female, which alienates the male.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all pick it up when I'm playing down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you come to church and the preacher get up and through charisma and all these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's pandering to the women in the room and all the men in the room looking at them like nah, I've redesigned it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to pender to the women in my preacher and I can't look a man in his eye and shake his hand after I'm done.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so my goal today is to honor without pandering and to do so by acknowledging international women's day.
[SPEAKER_00]: This holiday is not as old as you think, matter of fact is younger than 50 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't start here in America, it started in Russia, and after war war won, the women in Russia decided to draw attention to the issues that the war had created.
[SPEAKER_00]: the ripple effect of stuff like food shortages, poor living conditions, and the millions of deaths that occurred because it is war.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these women in this revolution created what they in became, or what we call today, international women's date.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was in 1975, where the United Nations decided to sponsor this holiday as an international one.
[SPEAKER_00]: 3 years after that, in California, a group of ladies came together and decided to extrapolate international women's day out to women's history week.
[SPEAKER_00]: to take the whole week where March 8th failed, to take time to reflect on the contributions of women in our world and in our country.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was in 1980 where a group of women and a group of alliances like the National Women's History Project, which is now known as the National Women's History Alliance, a lobbied for the president
[SPEAKER_00]: to proclaim this, not just a holiday, but a every year thing that we should celebrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was in February of 1980 that President Jimmy Carter, in my opinion, one of the Godliest men to ever be President of the Asian United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: President Jimmy Carter, who is also a Down South Georgia boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took to proclamation and used his presidential influence to declare that we could march a national women's history week.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was 46 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at what he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: President Carlos said, from the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women, have worked together to build this nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Too often, the women were unsung, and sometimes
[SPEAKER_00]: But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength, and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for the last 46 years, this annual Proclamation has re-emphasized what started as a day that became a week, which essentially now was a month, women's history month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet there are those who still question if women can lead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that was not a question, I think we might have a totally different reality than we do right now, if you're all picking up when I'm putting down.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's fine, questions are good and churches where you should ask questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if I can't ask the Lord a question and if I can't wrestle out loud with other believers about the questions in my soul and in our society, where else can I find the answer?
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, we noticed how in Acts chapter 15, there was a question among Christians in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question wasn't, should we accept women as equal to men, the question was, should we accept Gentiles as equal to Jews?
[SPEAKER_00]: As a result of this question, a council was formed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the church say council.
[SPEAKER_00]: and his council was a group of leaders in the church who took this question, they weighed the question against what they knew from scripture, and together they developed a cohesive stance on how Gentiles were to be sane in the greater Christian community.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got questions that lead to councils, councils that take the scripture
[SPEAKER_00]: It started in the first century church, but it continued throughout seven key ecumenical councils.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shared them with you last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't go through them again this week, but these seven councils have helped shape the Christian faith for the last 2,000 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because false teaching is always present.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every generation of Christian churches must do their own theological work.
[SPEAKER_00]: and theological work is best done in groups.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which you mean, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all know I've been in school, a time of two, committed my mind to love the Lord, my God, with all my mind, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And to set what is the theological parameters to protect this church and the spirits of people who worship in this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I understand I'm not the only person in this church who know the Lord or who know the good book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the theology of our church, though started or sustained by me, doesn't just stay with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The theology is best done in groups, because you always need different perspectives with the same spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can come away with a more comprehensive,
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so as a result of that, these councils created these statements, these statements were clearly communicated so Christians in those times knew where they stood.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we took it upon ourselves here to do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are a non-denominational church and we are a young church only three years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means we have not wholly adopted any theological practice of any Christian denomination.
[SPEAKER_00]: You all know that our mother church is Baptist.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Elizabeth Baptist Church, we are the way community church to state from our mother in the sense that we are not affiliated to nomination of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: That means we must do our own theological work.
[SPEAKER_00]: We gotta come together in small groups, ask the necessary questions, consider what the Scriptures have to say and develop where we stand on these issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly what we've been doing for the last two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our church is governed by a board, and so the five of us are the top table as it were at the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our board agreed for me to draw together a committee and they agree with who would be on that committee.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm going to give you a quick, the demographics of the people on the ways theological committee or council.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was eight of us who came together over the last two years, half of us are male, half or female.
[SPEAKER_00]: So four men, four women of the eight people that was somebody in each one of these decades of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had at least one person in their 20s, at least one in their 30s, at least one in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and at least one in their 70s.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of the eight, three of us had post-grads, seminary degrees, and all of us were certified wayfarners.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we did was we took six,
[SPEAKER_00]: key cultural issues, and we sat down together to develop where the way community church stands on that issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the goal of this series, which I started last week, and it will continue through the end of April, is to relate to you where we stand on sad issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, we started with where we stand on gifts of the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm going to talk about where we stand on women in leadership roles.
[SPEAKER_00]: one position on women in leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is our one position on women and leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to, you can read it with me on the count of three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's read it together, one, two, three.
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe that God created women in His image.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus died to redeem women as joint errors of salvation and the Holy Spirit in dwells, fields, and annoying women.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel is of God, and therefore not gender-specific.
[SPEAKER_00]: God converts women to salvation and calls women into gospel service.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are encouraged by the testimony of Miriam, Deborah, Esther, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary, Magdalene, Priscilla,
[SPEAKER_00]: and Phoebe, we are guided by the spirit of biblical passages like Galatians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three, Roman 16, Titus II, Second Timothy I, and Joel II,
[SPEAKER_00]: which, together convey that women have been divinely chosen to exercise spiritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is where we stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so I want to display something for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that you through this cannot just know how we arrived at this statement, but so you can be equipped to do your own theological work or any issues you need to know what the scripture says about.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm gonna show you is how to take an issue,
[SPEAKER_00]: to the Scriptures and rightly handle the Scriptures as you follow the thread from Genesis through to the end to get clarity on the overall biblical tenor about that issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to know what the Bible has to say about anything, you will make a mistake by picking one
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I'm going to display for you how to do this, but I'm also doing for you how we around the statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to do two things that was, y'all got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's the first major key.
[SPEAKER_00]: The law of first mention is critical to understanding God's intelligent design of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you wanna know what the Bible has to say about anything, you gotta use the law of first mention.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means go to the first time in the Bible, said issue or subject was brought up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you go to the first time in a Bible, that is where you start your three-head throughout the scripture to figure out what ever happened after that either failed below that standard or rose up to or above that standard.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go to the first time in a Bible that a woman was a major.
[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis chapter one verse number 27.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God created man, it's really humans in his image.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the image of God he created him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why's this y'all?
[SPEAKER_00]: Male and what church?
[SPEAKER_00]: He created them.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the beginning, God's idea of human relational flourishing had male and female together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means in God's mind, never was the male without the female.
[SPEAKER_00]: The original idea for human flourishing had both together as we see right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, to be sure, God did make the man first.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we know that on the sixth day of creation, God created human beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: That means, probably in the morning, he made the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the afternoon, he realized this man ain't going to make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the evening, he made the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: because Adam knew I can't go a day without a woman in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I telling the truth?
[SPEAKER_00]: He made the man on day six.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man named all the animals praise the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was sad because there's no helper for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at him, who fought some insurabians like him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who fought some guy, Sarabi?
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at the lady and the tramp.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, the lady got the tramp.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, who is there for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: This man couldn't make her the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: God said, don't worry about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just needed you to see your knee too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the next thing I do is going to blow your mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in Genesis chapter two, verse 18 through 22.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will make him what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Helper Suitable.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, verse 20, but for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Lord calls a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept and he took one of the ribs and closed up the flesh at that place and the Lord God did what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fashioned into a woman, the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: God did his best work for the man without even the man's help to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: because you can't help me with this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's look at the first thing the man thought and said about her when he saw her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Galatians 223.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the man said, at last, you made from the same stuff I made from.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are my equal.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are my, you are a bone of my bones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Flesh of my flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall be called, whoa, man.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in the book.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this passage is a basis for marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: We now talk about marriage today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to talk about where we stand on marriage in a few weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: We won't use this for marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll use this here for gender relations, how males and females relate outside of the covenant of marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, what we see here is this, when a woman is properly sane, she's also properly spoken to.
[SPEAKER_00]: what he said to her, what he spoke about her came from a place of properly seeing her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he had never seen an unlike this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so because he saw her properly as his equal, he spoke to her respectfully as his equal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what we know from the beginning, Genesis 1 and 2, we know that a woman was created by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was made from man.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was co-equal with man as a vice-region of creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Co-equal means male and female are always seen together from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were inspected to rule the earth together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We also know that the woman is the crown jewel of creation because she's the last thing God created then he rested.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to think all the stuff he made, he said, let there be light.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ain't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the waters team with fish ain't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the sky be filled with birds, ain't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Separate the day from the night, ain't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the land separate from the water, let the waters above, separate from the waters beneath, ain't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the earth bring forth vegetation and trees with fruit in them and seas in the fruit to be produced every month in their season, ain't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me make a man in my image to dominate the earth and rule it as if I were ruling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, let me make a woman, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're unfinished.
[SPEAKER_00]: God was like, I don't did it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in Genesis 1 and 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: right then he rest it here's what we know from Genesis 1 and 2 it is not sinful nor is it comparatively worse to be female nowhere in Genesis 1 and 2 do you get the idea that it's sinful to be a female or comparatively worse now we spend a lot of time in Genesis 1 and 2 because once we get the Genesis 3 it's all downhill from here.
[SPEAKER_00]: is all down hill from there until we get to a hill called Calvary.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a man on that hill said I tell you what I'm gonna die to fix, what was all down hill from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: While you're saying this, because the Old Testament tells the ugly truth, it's soon as saying entered.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that moment, how the woman was mistreated.
[SPEAKER_00]: how the woman was abused by males, and females, and fallen angels alike.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in the same enter, we see how the woman struggled, with barrenness and struggle in her body.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in the same enter, we see the conflict the woman has within herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see competition among other women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you got Rachel and Leo who pose to be sisters but they competitive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you got Panena and Hannah who are competitive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you got Sarah and Hague are who are competitive.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see this enter and so on and same enters.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see the woman struggle in her body, you see the woman struggle in herself, you see the woman struggle with other women and then you see the woman is treated by other forms of creation, man and follow the angels of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you read in a Bible, especially something where a woman is being mistreated, that doesn't mean God approved it because it's in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means the Bible wasn't sanitized from the ugly truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a lot of ugly truth about how women were mistreated in the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the ugly is, if I could call it that, would be judges 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've never read the passage, I want you to read it, but make sure you sit
[SPEAKER_00]: A few years ago, I preached from that passage in this church called Assarman Speaker, where it's time to speak up, something to that effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the depth of the lowest of how a woman who was made in God's image was completely commodified as an object and mistreated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet through all this darkness as a result of sin, we still see God intrude with His grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, how they're saying enter, saying enter because three parties open the portal for sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: First it was Satan, a fallen angel who tempted the woman to sin, the woman to sin, the man to sin, all three together had a hand in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though the man sinned after the woman, the man was responsible because God told the man face to face what not to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, do you see the judgment being passed now in Genesis?
[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 3, God gives consequences to each party.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they get their judgment in order, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You got serpent first, then you got no woman, then you got the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at what God says to the woman about her part in sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the woman God said, I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth.
[SPEAKER_00]: In pain, you shall deliver children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet your desire will be for your husband and he shall rule over you.
[SPEAKER_00]: God said, as a result of your part in stepping out of my wheel, you will have pain associated with the stewardship of the womb.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will have pain in childbirth, great pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you deliver children and are blessed to become a mother, it won't be without pain, which implies all the other painful realities of being a steward of a womb.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, your menstrual cycle on a monthly basis, they're an item-plows pain there, the season of paraminopause and menopause.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of these things you're going to go through as a steward of the womb, that physical pain is going to remind you, generation after generation, of how you send against them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then, it's somebody who said, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Veronica, I hear you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell you how to identify
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to be the only woman up there without a belly button.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the women are going to get the heaviness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, hey, God, before we come in, Saint Eve, I'll real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we come in, we'll be in the evening, coming real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us all let you come outside these early gates.
[SPEAKER_00]: But notice when he also says, he says,
[SPEAKER_00]: Co-reject, co-vice-reject with now there's going to be internal strife between you wanting to dominate him, but he's going to dominate you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you're going to have to struggle in your marital dynamic with submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: That don't mean that the woman wouldn't have a submit before saying, it means now she's not going to want to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's going to be headbutting between you and him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of the time, he's going to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to be a part of your reality, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Marquita Lathen, Adrian, already knew who it was, Lathen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adrian just looked straight ahead, bro.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look straight ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: You looked that way, I'm going to look this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want no smoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, notice in this dynamic, the submission element for the woman is only in the context of marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: No where in Genesis 1, 2 or 3, do we see God say that women have to submit to men?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we see is, wife is going struggle to submit to husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see all women have to submit to all men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that important?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's important because unless she y'all wife, submission is not something a woman owes a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Red, that means my wife is only submitted to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's not submitted to other men.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Ebb is out and about, and I'm not, we heard in some dude decide he wanna make her submit.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he can't tell about a rock on her hand, that defense will come for her?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gonna have a whole time her and a whole time with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And y'all gonna have to find a new preacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you, Dave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take this way, zip up all right here, bro.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brown, even care, Brian, hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, go hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got the sword of the spirit and I keep the blikky for the raw raw because she don't have to submit the other me
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I struggle with this too in my family dynamic.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my family of origin, I told you three women raised me, but I had three younger sisters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a part of the dysfunction in our family is because the fathers were not present, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: As the man of the house, the three older ones told me I'm the man of the house, the three young ones was like, no, you're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: So y'all got to see the picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm eight years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sitting at the dining room table and my grandmother and mother and aunt will let me sit at the head of the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sitting at the head of the table to feed dangling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the man of the house, they tell me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got to open us in prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ain't putting none of this food on this table.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feed dangling and I'm the man of the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really believed that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So with my sisters, I took it apart myself, the step into a role that I thought was missing in their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mistake I made, and I had to have a couple of Jesus moment with all three of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You not my daddy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they don't have to submit to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just a brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: You picking up what I'm putting down?
[SPEAKER_00]: So this idea of submission, we'll get to it in marriage, but it's not meant that one gender is to submit wholly to the other gender.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never see that in Genesis.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, two, or even three, when God gives the consequences in your marital dynamic, you're going to struggle with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all this ugly in this guy still used women.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a list of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when women mischreated each other, guy used them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tamar's a poorer, a myriad of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you got some daughters like the Zelofa has daughters, Joe's daughters, Jeff Zelofa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you got Jesus' great grandma, like Ray had, and Ruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you got Hannah and Abigail, queen of sheep.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got women who are queens, queen of sheep, but the shun of my woman, queen Vastai, queen Esther.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Old Testament, God used all these women, even when women were being mistreated for a longer than the ideal in Genesis 1 and 2, God still chose to use women, but not just an Old Testament, also the new.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the New Testament, there are two names I want to give you, Priscilla and Phoebe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Priscilla and Phoebe are new testament women who operate in leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you hear leadership in think and dominance, you don't know where leadership is.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a whole other conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leadership is influenced, says John Maxwell, and there are two women in New Testament who have influence in the early church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Priscilla and Phoebe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at what this text says around the chapter 16 verse 1, 3, 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, I command to you, our sister Phoebe, a watch all digging of the church in can create.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep going, verse number two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ask you to receive her in the lower in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you for she has been the benefactor of many people
[SPEAKER_00]: What is he saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I'm going to send you a decant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saying Greek term is the word decant used in Acts 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a decant in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not decant ass decant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it's anything wrong with being a decant ass, but it's not like she was subjugated at this point because of her gender, diet, diet canals, same Greek term.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need y'all to help her out, wow, because she doesn't help me out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then, look at verse number three, Greek, Priscilla, and Aquilo, my wet y'all, co-workers, and Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they do?
[SPEAKER_00]: They risked their lives for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only I, but all the choices of the Gentiles are grateful to them, who's Priscilla and Aquilo, that's a married couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Priscilla's the wife, Aquilo is the husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time their name is mentioned, most of the time her name is mentioned first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because some rooms you go in is going to be a Quilla and Priscilla, but other rooms you go in is going to be priscilla and a Quilla.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of rooms I mean is Darron Ebony.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't even shrink if I go in a room and is Ebony and Darron.
[SPEAKER_00]: Priscilla's mentioned first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice what he says.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are my coworkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't see him subjugate Priscilla.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't say a quillot is my coworker, and Priscilla is old girl that'd be with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you see that?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so we see from the Old Testament, we see in the New Testament, which is why here at the way, you can find an area of leadership that a woman not in at the wake of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, follow him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't exist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our governing board is five of us, two of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: This church has four employees, three full-time, one part-time of the four employees, two or a man, two or a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's intentional.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I've just displayed for you is how you can start it at the beginning, trace through the Old Testament, come to the New Testament and figure out what you need to do in your church.
[SPEAKER_00]: You all see what I just did?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do the same thing about any subject, even if there's some ugly you gotta consider.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first thing we see is one position, number two, I'm gonna hurry up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two perspectives on women in spiritual community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go straight to the graph.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are the two perspectives.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got complimentary and egalitarian.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to give you the real word somewhere you go look it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll know what you're looking for.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are two perspectives on how genders relate in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: The short of it is complimentary views women in men as complimentary, but not the same, distinct in their roles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Egalitarian views men in women as completely equal in every way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Complementarian says men and women are yet at both say, but the man is generally in the leadership role in the home and in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Egalitarian says men and women are so equal that we don't give leadership roles based on gender is based on gifting and ability.
[SPEAKER_00]: Complementarian says in the home, the man is over the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Egalitarian says in the home, whatever the issue is, determine who the leader is based on what the skill set is needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And both claim to be biblically based views of gender relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the question is, in my life personally, okay, Pastor Hall, you'll be talking about complementary egalitarian, which one you hold to, in your life, in your leadership, in your marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: My answer is, B-O-F-F-F, both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both, because if you choose one without giving on or to the other point of view, you miss the wisdom needed in the moment to know how to act or react.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at what Doug Webster says, he was one of my professors when I was working on my doctorate.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said Jesus refused to clear up the confusion and reduced and reduced his message to a list of explicit propositions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept coming at the truth, wet church, paradoxically.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to gender relations shows, on both, I think, is egalitarian and complementary.
[SPEAKER_00]: on both.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if it's paradoxical, the mature Christian understands that there's nuance in everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mature Christian understands unless sin is involved, two things can be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's not saying sin is what makes us determined if it's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: When no sand is involved, now it's just perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the motorcrishing out on the stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two things can be true at one time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm giving an example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here the way community church we have, just where they and I first female Deacon, Deacon Theresa Waters, thank God for your stand-up, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Woo, woo!
[SPEAKER_00]: Deacon Waters is equal to the other Deacans.
[SPEAKER_00]: in honor, in title, in ordination, she's equal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's only female deacon for now, but she's equal to the other deacons.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we were bringing her on, me and the chairman at a time deacon field pot had to have a conversation around, how do we deploy her though?
[SPEAKER_00]: because the deacons of the way community church don't just sit on the front row, they really work.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, the deacons of the way might come out on a week, they can clean up all the leaves out the parking lot and then pressure washed the building.
[SPEAKER_00]: We not go have deacons
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to have her out there pressure washing the building.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's complimentary, but she will be in there counting the money because that's egalitarian.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got to have the wisdom to know when we equal and when we compliment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the spirit has to help you in the moment, even in your managers who will get too soon to know how to navigate those moments, where is the complementary is egalitarian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all get it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, I know I'm holding you long, I'm gonna get the number three.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look at that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, we look at two perspectives.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look at that one position.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, number three, let's look at three tough passages.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are three passages in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: That when you read on Newly, I am,
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, and I want everyone to all the things that I'll pass to, I'm gonna try to avoid the hard conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nothing in the Bible and nothing in life we should be able to talk about in a sermon.
[SPEAKER_00]: So from the get up here and talk about women in leadership, I want you to think I'm just skirt around these three passages that when you read them, you lie, whoa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you three passages, here they go.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 3 through 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to encourage you to read it if you never have.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians 14, 33, through 35, and 1st Timothy 2, 9 through 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you never read these passages, I'm going to read them on the stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were not written in the 21st century from a Western cultural context.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even still, when you read them, they're going to be difficult to read on this subject of women in leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I want to show you is parts of each one that I want you to more strongly consider as you try to interpret and apply it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's start with the first one.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at this verse and first Corinthians 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 11, 11 through 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, however,
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, the first part is tough to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, what's the next reward, y'all?
[SPEAKER_00]: In the lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the lower right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Huh.
[SPEAKER_00]: For as the woman originated from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all things originate from who y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the next three words?
[SPEAKER_00]: Judge for yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got in the Lord just for yourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you interpret that passage, what it's saying is when genders are in the Lord, we add different towards each other than when we out the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you out the Lord, men and women are going to treat each other, hair and men and women, treat each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you would end the Lord, hmm, that's a different context.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's on in the Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not independent of each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's to keep differentiator.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's go to the next passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm almost done.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians chapter 14, first 33 through 35.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, for God is not a God of what church,
[SPEAKER_00]: but a piece as in all the watch all churches of the science.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 34, the women are to keep silent in the churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: For they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves just as the law also says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 35.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own what y'all husbands wear at home for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Woo!
[SPEAKER_00]: Right for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you read that passage, it's tough to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you focus on the reduction of confusion,
[SPEAKER_00]: You can better appreciate even the hard part to the part that's hard to stomach.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we got to know is how church was conducting and current is not how church is conducting incarners.
[SPEAKER_00]: You come to the way community church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We start at 30, Kelsey's going to get up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give us the call to worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't sing a song for 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, Tira Bradley's going to come up.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's going pray for three minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, Pastor Hall is going to come up and go over his time, giving the announcements.
[SPEAKER_00]: And still forget something important.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, Kills in the quiet is going to come back and they're going saying, saying, so good, that we're going to be like, I really don't even need this, aren't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Pastor Hollis is going to get up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to put 30 minutes on the clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one, he's going to preach for 50 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we suppose to go home at 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheldon is looking back.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we're not going to get home until you level 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: 90 minutes is really a hundred and four minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not how church was conducting in Corinth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, the book of Corinthians, both of them, are responses to questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were right to Paul, questions they have, and Paul will respond, now concerning virgins, now concerning marriage, now concerning gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would answer their questions in response in this letter back to them, because in Corinth, they will come to church and all ask questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, if the husband can answer the question at home, the husband can come in and he can ask the question on behalf of the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the husband asks the question, the spiritual leaders can give the answer and then the family has clarity on where they stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that passage of souls, the woman is married.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not all it's the case, is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you focus on reducing confusion, I think the spirit of the passage is, let's just reduce confusion in church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all picking up what I'm playing down?
[SPEAKER_00]: You obviously know when we can speak in this church, you're speaking right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me, I'll just say yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to say a little or a why?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, number three, and I'm going to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Timothy, chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, we're just gonna look at verse number nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says likewise, I will women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or expensive or peril, but rather by means of wet church, good works as it's proper for women making a claim to wet church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the rest of that passage is tough to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you read the rest of that passage, it is sound like Paul basically saying the people want them barefoot and pregnant, that's how she's going to be saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this verse, I think if we lean into what he's implying, we might be able to better appreciate even though it's tough to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, my wife and I discussed this verse often because Ebony is a beauty mogul.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a trained cosmatologist.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's home, uh, co-owned a hair salon.
[SPEAKER_00]: She now has a home makeup business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she teaches women how to do makeup.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God is also evolving that color to minister to the soul of the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she's always trying to navigate, you know, what's appropriate for the exterior when God is also called her to nurture the interior of the woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I think the spirit of this verse, I don't think it's saying walk around looking like
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's what I hope that's got what it's saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I think you're saying it, when you become a godly woman, made the origin of your beauty be inside more than outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Start with the inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if the beauty, if you're beautiful on the inside,
[SPEAKER_00]: You put more value than in the good works and the godliness, which are more beautiful than the pearls and the hair and the jewelry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a contrast, it's a juxtaposition.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's saying, you know how cute you feel when your hair gd and your outfit lay and your shoe coordinated.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you feel like you really, you really that girl when you dressed up by contrast, you lower that girl when the soul is pure and the works are good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God, lead this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what's in you, not what's on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's an intentional and towering juxtaposition in contrast, because the world is small.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as the exterior is, you go to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus said, you can watch the outside of the court but the inside is still dirty.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to whitewash the term and then be full of dead man's bones.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how he described the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to talk about women.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was from the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the tough passage to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the spirit of it is be more beautiful on the inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen church.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right to all I'm done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got a hand type of phrase if you would.