Timothy’s Woman Problem

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1 Timothy talks about many issues, relevant but at times difficult. Here I refer particularly to what Paul has to say about women in leadership in Chapter 2. Some churches and organisations today would not allow women to pastor or teach citing this scripture as authority:

“Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.”

1 Timothy 2:11-12 NKJV

So what do we make of it?

Let us try to piece together what happened at the church in Ephesus that warranted Paul’s strong statement before we come to any conclusion. 

Timothy had written to Paul to report on the situation at Ephesus. False teachers had infiltrated the church and were teaching a kind of Jewish proto-gnosticism. Among other things, they taught that:

-Eve is both a mediator and redeemer figure who pre-existed Adam.

-Man came into existence because of a woman, and he was given enlightenment through the woman. Since Eve was the first to take a bite from the Tree of Knowledge, she is the bearer of special spiritual knowledge (called gnosis).

-Women are called to lead people to the illuminating gnosis which was represented by the Tree of Knowledge. Redemption completely reversed the effects of the Fall so that men are no longer subject to earthly authorities and women are no longer subject to their husbands.

This teaching originated from male teachers but was quickly taken over by women in the church. Hardly surprising; feminism had a new name. Those who believed prefer female leaders to male. Some of the women were teaching the heresy in the church meetings and were lording it over the men. As a result men had become lesser beings in the church!

Under such circumstances, it is not hard to conceive why Paul instructed Timothy to forbid women to teach and lead. This was the strategy for the hour. If it was a solution to a particular problem at a specific time and location we should have reservation as to whether this particular instruction from Paul is to be taken as a command for churches everywhere every time. We might risk generalising too much.

In general, men are to be leaders and teachers in church but women are not to be shunned for holding positions in church leadership. Paul himself commended at various occasions women coworkers of his whom he held at high esteem, like Phoebe, Junia and Priscilla (see Rom 1:1, 7 and Acts 18:26). Clearly Paul considered them worthy leaders and teachers.

So how could we say that Paul forbid women to lead or teach in church at all times across the board? We can rest assured that this is not the case.

References:

1. The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, Frank Viola

2. TheBibleProject.com

The Thought Behind 1 John 1:9

8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:8-9. NKJV.

Believers are well-versed with 1 John 1: 9. It is often quoted to encourage Christians to confess their sins with the assurance of God’s forgiveness. But such admonition implies this: if believers don’t confess their sins they won’t be forgiven. Too many today hold this view citing 1 John 1: 9 as the authority. So, confessing sins become a prevalent “Christian” practice, whether at the table of The Lord’s Supper or at an individual’s private prayer time. Many have been taught to start their prayer with confessing sins. They become sin-conscious. But is this what the verse is trying to tell us? Not necessary so. Let us examine briefly.

The main contention is whether 1 John 1:9 is for believers. The problem is that unlike most letters in the New Testament the author did not name the intended recipients. So are we to accept that all that’s written is to us and for us as believers? If we don’t know who the original audience was and for what purpose the letter was written we cannot be sure how to apply the words in the epistle to our life. Some exegesis is in order.

Notable Bible scholars hold the view that 1 John was addressed to Gnostics, or to believers who were confused as a result of the infiltration of Gnostic beliefs into the church. Here I quote Professor F.F. Bruce (in bold):

What 1 John is all about? In form and content it is a message of encouragement and reassurance, sent to a group of Christians who were perplexed and bewildered by recent happenings in their midst.

What happenings?  … their most talented brethren had left them in order to form a new community or communities devoted to a specially attractive line of teaching which was represented as an advance on anything that Christians had been taught thus far.

What teaching? In its theory it closely resembled the docetic brand of Gnosticism; in particular, it denied that Christ had ‘come in the flesh’. …On the practical level these new teachers claimed to have reached such an advanced stage in spiritual experience that they were ‘beyond good and evil”. They maintained that they had no sin, not in the sense that they had attained moral perfection but in the sense that what might be sin for people at a less mature state of inner development was no longer sin for the completely ‘spiritual’ man. For him ethical distinctions had ceased to be relevant.

What was the result of the divergence in understanding? In such a situation it was impossible for those who propagated and embraced the new teaching to continue with those who believed that the old was better. So they left the fellowship.

The Christians who remained in their former fellowship were hard hit and shaken by the secession of these others, and needed to be assured.

To Christians in this perplexity, then, the First Epistle of John was written.

This is a most logical and reasonable reconstruction of the situation that led to the writing of 1 John. It helps make sense of many passages in the epistle. For instant, ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us …’ (1 John 2:19, NKJV). Also, ‘every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God’. (1 John 4:3, NKJV).  And most importantly for our case at hand, ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ (1 John 1:8, NKJV).

We don’t want to go into too much detail about Gnostic teachings here, but from what we have learned, we can reconstruct 1 John 1:8-9 this way: ‘If we, like the Gnostics, insist that we are beyond good and evil and have no sin – for sin holds no meaning to us - we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we, unlike the Gnostics, accept and agree with God that we of ourselves have fallen short of His glory and have need to be saved from our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’  

From the simple exegesis, we know that verse 9 must be read together with verse 8, it is not stand-alone. Although the “we” in verse 9 could refer to or include believers, the “we” in verse 8 alludes to people holding the Gnostic view. The author is not saying that believers must own up to what they have done wrong before they can be forgiven. Such rendering is far-fetched and is no different from taking the verse out of its context. The author is talking about people whom he doubted were true believers in the first place! This is wrong application!

Reference

F.F. Bruce, The Epistles of John. W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Have Faith Like Little Children

My eight-year-old daughter attended Vacation Bible School at CGBC last week, five days in all. She relished the time there, had fun playing and learning. Kids are impressionable and teachable. But here’s something I didn’t expect she would pick up:

“Hey, would you believe it, God just answered my prayer!” Charissa reported out of the blue, sounding rather excited. We were on the road from Ipoh to Klang. I was driving, Mei Wan was seated next to me with our little girl at the back.

“What is it?” I asked, wondering what led to such proclamation.

“He took away the pain in my head,” Charissa answered.

“You had a headache?”

“Yes, when I woke up from sleep just now, but it’s now gone. I asked God to take it away and He did what I asked!”

We were more than pleased. Even though we had taught her about God’s healing before, I reckoned the last few days of VBS must have reinforced something to that effect. So I probed, “Did they teach you on healing at the VBS?”

“Yeah, teacher showed us a video of a pastor praying for people. He prayed for a kid blind in the left eye and then he could see!”

Teaching kids on healing at VBS! I never expected this. The church has done a good job.

But after journeying a further half hour, Charissa said, “Aiya, I think the headache has come back.”

“You can pray again,” said Mei Wan.

So Charissa blurted out, “O God please take away my pain... heal me please, I don’t want to have this pain. Please, please quickly do that...I don’t want it... please, please take it away!”

She went on and on, begging God. Not looking like in much pain, she nevertheless sounded earnest appealing to God. But as she continued pleading I decided to correct her. “You don’t have to ask God like that, as if begging Him do something He is not keen doing. No need to talk to God, talk to the pain, ask it to go away. By His stripe you are healed.”

“Just talk to the pain?” she asked.

“Yes, God has given you the authority,” I answered.

“Ok, ok daddy. Pain, you go away. Go far, far away from me....Don’t come near me anymore. I don’t want you, you go to other people....Stay there, don’t come back....Go to other people, don’t come to me....”

Hearing this, I looked at my wife and we both started laughing.

“Why must you send the pain to other people? You can command the pain to go away, it need not go to other people. Okay, send it to hell.”

She stopped for a moment, staring at both of us who couldn’t stop laughing. Then, in a matter-of-fact manner she commanded, “Go to hell you pain, I don’t want you. Stay there and don’t ever come back!”

I tried to stop laughing but couldn’t contain myself.  Charissa must have been healed amidst our laughter.

No wonder Jesus said those who come to him must be like little children. They had the capacity to simply believe. Our heavenly Father would be very pleased if we would believe Him simply like our children believe us. That would bring Him great joy.

On the other hand, as parents we are in the best position to instil in our children the right belief. They learn not only from what we taught them, but also what they see what they hear and what they observe from us.

Coming back to our trip. The next day we went shopping at KLCC for Christmas presents. We spent almost the whole day there, so at the car park auto-pay machine I already anticipated a hefty sum. After I slotted in the ticket, the machine read “RM33.00”. More used to the RM2.00 that we pay at Kinta City Ipoh, Mei Wan exclaimed, “Wow, so expensive!”

Immediately the little fellow chipped in, “All because of Najib! Everything is so expensive because of him. He is to be blamed.”

My wife and I burst out laughing.

Righteous Desire

The fear of the wicked will come upon him, and the desire of the righteous will be granted. ...Proverbs 10:24 NKJV

Reading this verse, it is clear that the wicked are preoccupied with fears whereas the righteous with desires.

Both fear and desire require faith. What is fear? Fear believes that something bad is going to happen. To fear is to focus our thought on what we don't want happen. What is desire? It is to hope that something good will happen. To desire is to focus our thought on what we want happen.

The scary thing is that both can happen, depending on our choice. Job said the thing I greatly feared has come upon me. Jesus said whatsoever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.

We better get a hold of ourselves how we think. Paul gave young Timothy a priceless tip how to conduct life. He says God has not given you a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power of love and of a sound mind. The Amplified Bible translates a “disciplined” mind. Yes, we have been given a spirit of disciplined mind to focus on thinking what we want happen, not what we don’t want happen.

The choice is simple, isn’t it? But you will be surprised how many choose fear over desire. Some may even think that it is being responsible to fear or worry, like Job did. Some may think it sinful to desire much.

But you know better, just as you know that I didn't try to take things out of context because I read this verse from the perspective of the New Testament. Who is righteous according to the NT? God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So you are righteous, whatever others would have you believe, whatever you feel about how Solomon defined righteousness and wickedness in the whole chapter of Proverbs 10.

So righteous one, you know what to choose.

Congratulation! Your desire will be granted.

You Saved the Best for Last

For the past few days I have had to keep my emotions in check.

I didn’t expect the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew would have affected me so much. I tried to analyze, but it is all futile. I have lived long enough to know that when it is time to feel I should just feel, don’t try to understand.

Singapore holds a very special place in my heart. I had the privilege to live much of my life in Singapore, it is a wonderful country. I studied and worked there for close to fifteen years, and made some lifelong friends. Today I know many of them are mourning a great loss.

I saw the queues of people to pay their last respect to their great leader. I called a friend, no I whatsupped her, a cool-headed PhD and she couldn’t contain her emotions. I would have envied her and her fellow countrymen, that they could have a leader they so adore, if not for the fact that I myself had been privileged to live under the influence of the great man for a long time.

A great loss indeed. On his stage, he was peerless. But I am sure that Singapore will move on to greater heights, even without their founding prime minister. Let’s not forget that Mr Lee’s legacy started with a loss. It was so to him, so much so he cried on television.

Kicked out of the Federation, with a million mouths to feed, on an island state practically with no resources. And those who kicked him out must have thought: good riddance of a troublesome people.

But God is a father to the orphans the needy the oppressed. He will make sure that they have the last laugh.

I read in John 2, the morning of the passing of Mr Lee but not yet hearing the news, a verse that captivated me:

Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now! (John 2:10, MSG)

Look at the country Mr Lee built. Success is an understatement.

I don’t want to argue about Mr Lee’s religious inclination, but it couldn’t be clearer to me: he is God’s gift to Singapore, the Moses of his generation.

As in 1965, so in 2015, the Redeemer can turn a loss to gain.

The end of a chapter for Singapore? Maybe, but their Joshua is already here.

Jesus Came to Put the World Right Again

At the heart of Christmas is the reason why God sent Jesus.

John the Apostle wrote in his Gospel:

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. (John 3:16-17, MSG)

Did Jesus come to tell you how bad you are? Did He come to accuse mankind of making a mess of the world He created? No, not if we believe what God’s word says. Apparently people already have a good understanding how bad the world is.

He came to help, to put the world right again.

This is the posture He takes, since the beginning. He has not changed, and is not going to change. His heart has always been the same, He wants our good. He always comes on the scene for us when something turns bad. Always.

If you look at the world around us, there seems to be economic uncertainty, political instability and even religious extremism and persecution. When we send our hymnals to the photocopy shop they may be referred to the police. When you go for fine Christmas dining at the hotel, they may have no turkey. But take heart, He came to help, to put OUR WORLD right again.

When you look at your own world, is there anything amiss? Has anything turned bad? A bad report from the doctor? A business opportunity missed? A relationship turned sour? It is not His idea. Take heart, He came to help, to put YOUR WORLD right again.

So long as I remember and believe He came to help, to put MY WORLD right again, I cannot help but rejoice. I sense the spirit of Christmas in the air, and this year it is especially beautiful.

Merry Christmas!

Life Power and Dead Behavior

Jesus travelled all over to preach God’s kingdom and one time came to Jericho. There was a very rich man named Zacchaeus who was supervisor over all the tax collectors in town (Tax collectors were generally thought to be crooks serving the Romans fattening their own pockets with tax money). As Jesus was passing by he tried to get a glimpse of Him. But because he was very short and Jesus was thronged by a huge crowd he couldn’t see Him over the crowd. So he climbed up a big tree to try to see Jesus.

Zacchaeus had never seen Jesus before. But when Jesus noticed him He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come on down, I am going to stay at your place tonight.” Overjoyed, he scrambled out of the tree and led Jesus away to his home. Zacchaeus must have been astounded by the fact that Jesus could call out his name even though they had never met before. But many in the crowd were not impressed, and they said, “Look at this! Of all the people to have dinner with, He’s going to eat in the house of a crook!” (Luke 19:7 TPT)

In calling out Zacchaeus’ name Jesus demonstrated supernatural power – a word of knowledge. Imagine how you would react if you were Zacchaeus. Anyone who has his name called out by a stranger would stop to think. I believe this has a huge impact on Zacchaeus that finally led to his salvation (Read Here). The power brought life to Zacchaeus and his household.

But that’s not all to the story. I am amazed by the reaction of the religious crowd. Here they were witnessing God’s supernatural power on display, yet all they could think of was Jesus shouldn’t associate Himself with a sinner. They were very concerned about right and wrong, and that’s what they lived by. It didn’t matter to them that life has been served. They couldn’t care less if God has come on the scene. They just wanted to live by their principles and to look good.

That is how those who want to live by the Law live. In trying to fulfill God’s Law by their own effort, they found themselves estranged from God. It was like this in the Garden of Eden: Adam and Eve chose knowledge of right and wrong instead of life; they wanted to live independent from God. It was like this at Mt Sinai: Israel chose a set of laws instead of the presence of God. They didn’t want to go near God but instead asked Moses to get them a set of rules to live by. To me this is a big joke.

Paul told the Romans that he was not ashamed of the Gospel, and he said the Gospel is the power unto salvation for those who believe (Rom 1:16, NKJV). Let us not be offended by the power of the Gospel. It will surely bring life to many. It is Jesus’ method.

Scripture Link : BibleGateway.com