I was asked this question by a reader and it’s a good question! Thank you, sister for the query. We have several verses in scripture that speak to ecclesiastical roles/duties with regard to men and women. The one most spoken of is Paul’s verse in 1 Timothy 2:12,
“But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.”
There is also the verse in 1 Corinthians 14:34,
“the women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.”
Which is re-emphasized in the next verse, 1 Corinthians 14:35,
“If they wish to inquire about something, they are to ask their own husbands at home; for it is dishonorable for a woman to speak in the church.”
Headship is the issue, which as part of her submission to the Head of the Church, mentions the woman’s silence. Thus, part of woman’s role is to remain silent in the church. It’s actually dishonorable to speak! The Greek word for dishonorable or disgraceful, is actually “sordid“. THAT’S how gross the Lord deems it for a woman to speak in the church service.
A woman reading scripture is not technically teaching or preaching it, (or IS it?) but the optics of a woman on the dais, with open Bible, reading and speaking, visually contradicts the verses that say women should remain quiet. It *looks* like she is taking authority, an authority she doesn’t have. That is not a good visual. She is also not being quiet as the verse says she must be.
If a woman was truly submissive to the headship of elders and to husband, there really should be no reason why she would want to perform in front of the church during service in that role.
Some people say ‘But, but, it’s JUST reading!’ No it’s not just innocent reading. Public reading of scripture during worship service is actually part of preaching.
1 Timothy 4:13 says, “Until I come, give your attention to the public reading, to exhortation, and teaching.”
“Those three elements form the essence of preaching: reading Scripture, declaring it, and explaining it” said MacArthur. So it’s not ‘just’ reading, it actually is a function of the pastor as part of the sermon.
To conclude, the issue of women reading the Bible to the congregation during services is:
1. Headship/Creation order issue; 2. Women remaining silent; 3. Understanding via proper interpretation that reading scripture is part of the pastor’s duties in preaching; and 4. A bad look, with a nuance in interpretation that treads close to a line many churches decide not to cross.
I rejoice when women ask me these kinds of questions. The glory of the Lord should be utmost in people’s mind and heart, with an earnest desire to obey His word in all things. Even though many visible churches seem to be falling into reproach these days, there are many more where obedient and diligent elders and pastors strive toward holiness and urge their people to do so as well. They gather, serve, sing, rejoice, obey; and persist in all these things. Even though we can’t see them, these churches are there. Some have 20 people in them and some have 200 and some have more. The Lord is not slack concerning His promises. He will build His church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
In Acts 18:10, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision. He told Paul to keep persevering in Corinth, ‘for I have many people in that city’. We never know where the Lord has His elect, nor who will be regenerated by the preaching of His leaders. We don’t know where people will grow and flourish despite our view of circumstances on the ground. He keeps His church thriving and will do so until the end.
Philosophers are a funny breed. They have great thoughts and important discussions and some of them, even, contribute to the world in useful ways.
For the most part though, philosophers are to be pitied, for they pursue wisdom apart from God’s word. This is a vain pursuit.
Colossians 2:8 says, “See to it that there is no one who takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception in accordance with human tradition, in accordance with the elementary principles of the world, rather than in accordance with Christ.”
The word philosophy here means, according to Strong’s Concordance,
5835/philosophía (“philosophy”) in Col 2:8 refers to secular philosophy – elevating human wisdom over the wisdom of God. Such 5385 (philosophía) is loving one’s own thoughts (secular wisdom) at the expense of God’s Word (true wisdom).
And that is exactly what most philosophers do.
I came across a new sub-sub genre of philosophy the other month. It’s the study of “imaginative resistance.”
Our imagination will accept a book plot that involves flying cars or talking cats or aliens from other worlds readily enough. The problem is not with imagination. The problem (or ‘puzzle’ as philosophers state it) comes in when an author writes a fictional narrative that includes elements we deem morally reprehensible. Our imagination resists it. We won’t go there as a reader or movie watcher.
Morally deviant narratives are almost universally resisted by readers or viewers. Factually deviant fiction is no problem. We suspend disbelief to allow our imagination to go along with warp speed or giant guardian talking trees and closets that lead to another world. Yet morally deviant fiction is a huge problem. We reject infanticide and slavery as being deemed ‘good’. The evil villain who gets away with it doesn’t sell as many books as the one who receives justice in the end. People won’t consume it. Why this happens is a puzzle to philosophers. This paper explains further:
When engaging with a work of fiction we readily imagine all sorts of things, many of which depart from the world as we know it. Moreover, we tend have no trouble imagining such factually deviant propositions; our knowledge that, e.g., there are no such things as hobbits does not get in the way of our imagining the world described by Tolkien. Matters are different, however, when we are asked to imagine morally deviant propositions. If told: “Giselda gave birth to her fourth child,” we go along with the author. But if told, “In killing her baby, Giselda did the right thing; after all, it was a girl,” we tend to resist. How to explain this asymmetry has come to be known as the puzzle of imaginative resistance”. Source
This philosophy blogger said, “Without the slightest resistance, we accept invitations to imagine scenarios that contradict the known laws of nature or that rewrite some large or small fragment of the history of the world.”
Our imagination is inhibited by very few restraints, as confirmed by the fact that fiction has been alive and well since almost the dawn of history. However there IS a constraint upon imagination, there are some things our mind does resist treading toward and over a certain line. And that this is a generality that seems true across cultures and times, for almost the whole of humankind, indeed must be a puzzle to those who do not know the Lord.
For example, speaking of rewritten history, the television series “The Man in the High Castle” was an extremely well done and by the way, successful show that revised history to spin out what America would be like if we had lost to the German Nazis in WWII. It was an imaginative puzzle of interesting ramifications and scenarios that the show’s writers dealt with in ingenious ways. The Nazis were repugnant and their regime was a horror. Still, though, the author could imagine a world run by Nazis, and readers and TV watchers did also, but … we don’t normally accept imagining a world where the adulteress wins.
Famously, the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close, Michael Douglas and Anne Archer had an ending that we never got to see. The plot centered on Michael Douglas as Dan, who was a (supposedly) happily married man and his weekend-long sexual encounter with a woman he’d just met. When the weekend was over he assumed the relationship would end, too, but the woman, (Glenn Close, playing Alex) became dangerously unstable and refused to let go. She performed increasingly dangerous intrusions into the family, at one point, boiling the family’s pet bunny. This is where we get the term “bunny boiler.” The climax came when she appeared in the married couple’s bathroom and tried to kill the wife (Anne Archer). Michael Douglas’ character drowned Alex in the tub, but she wasn’t dead and popped back up, but by then Anne Archer’s character was ready with a gun and shot Alex dead. Cue the end.
Audiences loved that ending. It was satisfying. Especially because 35 years ago, the woman was much more looked upon as the person more in the wrong in any adulterous affair. That she got what was coming was fulfilling to the audience. But that was not the ending the screenwriter put on the page at first.
Originally, the Alex character slits her own throat and frames the Michael Douglas character. She commits suicide and dies a lonely death in her bathroom. This did not please audiences at all, who clamored for a more theatrically potent and a more morally just ending.
Director Adrian Lyne reminisced, “Somebody said that the only innocent party in the movie is Beth, so it had a certain logic that [Alex’s death] would come from her,” he says of how he approached Archer’s revised role.”
Imaginative resistance refers to the way readers are willing to give consent to all sorts of implausible things in the context of a fiction, but become uneasy when asked to imagine that something they consider morally or ethically reprehensible is good. Source
That this resistance is a puzzle to philosophers is not puzzling to Christians. God has instilled in every person’s soul a moral compass, vestigial knowledge of the Ten Commandments impressed into the heart, and a conscience.
William Fenner, English Puritan, wrote, There is in every man a conscience: “their conscience…bearing witness.” There was a conscience in the scribes and Pharisees: “being convicted by their own conscience” (Joh 8:9). There is a conscience in good men, as in Paul: “our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience” (2Co 1:12). There is a conscience in wicked men: “their mind and conscience is defiled” (Ti 1:15). As it is impossible the fire should be without heat, so it is impossible that any man should be without a conscience.
We all have one. And why is that? Do worms have a conscience? Do mice have a conscience? Do butterflies have a conscience? No. Only humans have a conscience, and this mental activity inside us that accuses or excuses did not “evolve”.
AW Pink wrote, “CONSCIENCE is the faculty of the soul that enables us to perceive of conduct in reference to right and wrong, the inward principle that decides upon the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our desires and deeds. Conscience has well been termed the moral sense because it corresponds to those physical faculties whereby we have communion with the outward world, namely, the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Man has an ethical instinct, a faculty or moral sensibility informing and impressing him.“
We suspend disbelief, we can imagine illogic, we can set aside physical laws, but for “some reason” we humans almost universally cannot go beyond some aspects of moral imagination. Why? I put it to you that it is because we have an innate sense of the line that is drawn of ethics, morals, and values as humans, and that glimmers of the knowledge of our accountability to God restrains us. The Common Grace of the Holy Spirit in His restraining activity enacts this.
The Greek word for conscience appears in the New Testament 31 times, writes RC Sproul. Its use is two-fold, it accuses as well as excuses. “When we sin, the conscience is troubled. It accuses us. The conscience is the tool that God the Holy Spirit uses to convict us, bring us to repentance, and to receive the healing of forgiveness that flows from the gospel,” he said in “How Can I Develop a Christian Conscience?“.
How is the conscience informed? God’s word informing God’s principles to the person’s mind. How is the conscience breached? By constant sin unaddressed, which hardens the mind and dissociates the soul.
The conscience excuses as well as accuses. We are living in a time when that moral line of resisting moral deviance in fiction, as well as resisting it in real life in all arenas, is rapidly evaporating. Sproul continues,
“It’s interesting that we can always find someone who will give an articulate and persuasive defense for the ethical legitimacy of some of the activities that God has judged to be an outrage to Him. As humans, our ability to defend ourselves from moral culpability is quite developed and nuanced. We become a culture in trouble when we begin to call evil good an good evil.”
What happens when the puzzle of why humans resist going over certain morally deviant lines erodes to the point when anything and everything is good, or at least, should be tolerated? It is prophesied that the cycle of evil over human history will always devolve to the point of calling evil good and good, evil, says Isaiah 5:20.
We have after-birth abortion which is just another name for infanticide, drag shows to children, homosexual marriage, torture and defacing of children in pursuit of another identity, riots that are called peaceful and peaceful protests that are called riots, and much more and worse. We have this now. What do you think will happen when the Spirit ceases His restraining hand and like the line of children playing tug of war, fall down, all moral restraint collapses and falls all at once?
GotQuestions mulls this over:
Of course, the Spirit works through believers to accomplish this. The church, indwelt by the Spirit of God, has always been part of what holds society back from the swelling tide of lawless living. At some point, Paul says, the Spirit will “step aside” from His restraining work, allowing sin to have dominion over mankind. Second Thessalonians 2:7 can be literally rendered, “The secret of lawlessness is already working, only it cannot be revealed until he who now withholds disappears from the midst.” We believe this “disappearing from the midst” will happen at the time the church leaves the earth at the rapture. The Holy Spirit will still be present in the earth, of course, but He will be taken out of the way in the sense that His unique sin-restraining ministry—through God’s people—will be removed (see Genesis 6:3).Source
Can you imagine? Literal hell will break loose on earth.
Philosophy is all well and good for those who stumble in the dark. God’s word says of philosophy,
We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. (1 Corinthians 2:13).
Timothy, protect what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly, empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge”— (1 Timothy 6:20).
It is admittedly a distressing state to sit in a seat of light and truth and knowledge, and watch philosophers and ethicists and sociologists the unsaved elites grapple with these issues of morals and conscience. It’s worse to see these people informing our leaders in government based on these horrific principles. The Lord in His wisdom bestowed true knowledge to His people, yet the unsaved stumble in the dark and fall into a pit. O, the Day when He comes to show all who He is and that the Light is pure and Holy will be too late for many.
For the Christian in these times, protect your conscience. It is valuable and is the guiding light that informs our mind of sin, grows us in accusing us of sin, which drives us to the Father in repentance. Be a believer, not a philosopher.
I’d wondered about two questions. The first was, can the unsaved get a glimpse into the other side by means of divination? They seem to do it all the time. The true and biblical answer of course, was NO. That essay is here.
If the unsaved cannot look up to see what is happening in heaven, then, can those in heaven look down and see what is going on here on earth? This was the second question I’ll address today. The Bible isn’t totally crystal on this, but probably the answer is no.
John MacArthur addressed this question, “Do those in heaven know what is happening on earth?” He dealt with “the rare and unusual occurrence” of Saul’s interaction with the Witch of Endor, (1 Samuel 28), and the issue of the parable with Lazarus in Sheol. He debunked the Hebrews 12:1 issue by placing it in context and explaining it biblically, saying this-
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Hebrews 12:1)
The witnesses in that verse are not modern-day loved ones, but the faithful saints in Hebrews 11 who lived victorious lives by trusting God. Those saints are witnesses to us because their lives testify about the value of trusting God no matter what hardships we face. They are active witnesses who speak to us by their example; not passive witnesses who watch us with their eyes.
Consequently, when we understand Hebrews 12:1 in its context, we realize that it doesn’t really support the idea that our loved ones are watching us from heaven. Our comfort comes not from knowing they can see us, but that they can see Jesus and one day we will see Him with them as well-never to be separated again.
GotQuestions asks and answers that question, too, here, and exegetes the verse Hebrews 12:1 to say, no, that is not what the verse is telling us. They conclude with this, “The Bible doesn’t specifically say that people in heaven cannot look down on us, so we can’t be dogmatic. However, it is unlikely that they can. People in heaven are likely preoccupied with other things such as worshiping God and enjoying the glories of heaven.“
But, people have asked, doesn’t the ‘silence in heaven for half an hour’ recorded in Revelation 8:1 when Jesus breaks the 7th seal, mean that people in heaven know what is happening on earth? That they are following the events of the Great Tribulation as recorded in Revelation, in real time? GotQuestions muses on three possible reasons, but none of the three reasons indicate a sure knowledge that people in heaven are watching earth as if from a balcony.
Albert Barnes in his Commentary notes explains Revelation 8:1 in a way that makes sense, “The meaning here is, that on the opening of this seal, instead of voices, thunderings, tempests, as perhaps was expected from the character of the sixth seal (Revelation 6:12 ff), and which seemed only to have been suspended for a time Revelation 7, there was an awful stillness, as if all heaven was reverently waiting for the development. Of course this is a symbolical representation, and is designed not to represent a pause in the events themselves, but only the impressive and fearful nature of the events which are now to be disclosed.“
I’m not sure why anyone would want to watch earth, when they can see Jesus, watch the holy angels, and participate in heaven’s activities! There is no comparison.
If you want to be sure you’re acting in a holy manner pleasing to God, and are curious about the other side, and are saved, read the Word of God to see what He has revealed in it. Then when you depart this life and go to heaven, you will know for sure about the extent to which we can ‘look down’ (or not) and see earth.
We regenerated believers have a duty to those who are so obviously curious, so obviously searching for hope of another life after death. Jesus called us to be His ambassadors and witnesses. We have the HOPE and we have the TRUTH. Let’s share it far and wide. Those whom the Lord will open their ears to hear, He will open. For, how will they believe unless they have heard? Romans 10.
The Bible doesn’t focus excessively on visions of heaven, but it does speak about our future home in several places in God’s word. We are given glimpses of the ‘other side’ in several different books. Elisha saw heaven open up here on earth when the LORD opened his servant’s eyes and saw there were chariots all around. Paul was given a glimpse and it was wonderful but unlawful to say more about it. Steven as he was dying his martyr’s death, was given a glimpse.
Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John were given extended views of heaven in visions and told to write about them. Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 8, 9, 10, 11; and all of Revelation starting in chapter 1 verse 12 and ongoing through chapter 22.
“The Other Side”. “The Great Beyond”. “The Great Unknown”. “Behind the Veil”. “The Hereafter”. These are all terms and synonyms unsaved people use for the place we go after death. Intuitively, even the unsaved person knows that we have a soul and that it goes someplace after death. That was obvious to me, anyway, before I was saved. I used to wonder quite often about the Big Questions. Like, why does every culture have a heaven of some kind? Why do so many people apparently die and come back with similar stories of a bright, white light and another dimension?
Before I was saved, I was highly curious about these matters. At different points, I even went to an Aura Reader, had a witch read my Tarot Cards, and I bought books where the authors claimed to have died and come back. I paid for a ‘past life regression’ session. I even watched a movie called Escape From Hell. It was about a doctor, distressed over the death of a friend, and curious about stories of the other side, who induces cardiac arrest in order to have a near-death experience, and forces a fellow doctor to stand by to bring him back before it’s too late. His journey takes him to The Gates of Hell.
Little did I know that when I sought out Tarot and Aura readers and past life hypnotists and psychics, I was playing with dangerous fire. It was only the patience and love of God as His soon-to-be saved elect that didn’t punish me for treading into these areas He has forbidden.
I had a lot of time to look into the wrong things before I was saved at age 42! But all this to say, I completely understand the secular world’s fascination with the beyond. There really are two questions at play: one is, can those unsaved on earth peek into the other side to be sure there is a heaven? And two, are those in heaven watching us down here, looking through a window to see how things are playing out? I’m examining an answer to the first question today and the second question tomorrow.
I saw a Christian brother refute a headline that offered tips on how to know your departed loved ones are around you. The site’s article was titled Five Signs A Passed Loved One Is Trying To Contact You and as I looked around on it, it was obvious that the site was totally consumed with Dreams, Astrology, The Paranormal, UFOs & Aliens, Fortune Telling & Divination. Gulp. Treacherous stuff.
The unsaved spend a lot of energy dueling with themselves. They desperately want to know about the other side. Look at all the movies, books, sites, and tv shows on these topics! But they suppress the ONE and ONLY truth about it, Jesus and His heaven. (Romans 1:18). I remember distinctly every time someone mentioned this possibility, that the ‘Jesus thing’ as I termed it, was true, my mind would go, ‘NOOOO. Not that! Anything but that!’ Witches and tarot was better than sin-holiness-blood-repent. They prefer the creation to the Creator. (Romans 1:22).
After I saw the headline and followed up with looking into the article, I mulled the unfortunate and pitiable state of the unsaved. I then remembered a devastating event with TV personality Roma Downey. You might remember this actress from the long-running TV show Touched by an Angel. (1994-2003). More recently she and her husband Mark Burnett co-wrote a TV series based on The Bible (which won an Emmy but sadly twisted the Truth). She and her husband executive-produced produced the feature films Ben-Hur, Son of God, Little Boy, Woodlawn, Resurrection, Messiah, and Country Ever After which aired in 2021. It’s obvious Downey is fascinated with Bible topics, but though she keeps trying to learn, she has never come to the truth. (2 Timothy 3:7).
Downey says she is a devout Catholic and is also a mystic. Many Catholics combine ritual with mysticism. Downey “sees God in everyone” and utters claptrap such as “The language of God is in the silence.” She attained a Master’s Degree from a New Age college in Spiritual Psychology. Her beliefs are not even close to being evangelical, born-again Christian.
Further, she practices divination. She participated in a psychic show and allowed the medium to ‘call up’ her dead mother from the other side and Downey talked with ‘her’. This is divination and necromancy, part of a cadre of sorceries that God hates with a holy hatred. God said,
Thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of [the] nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. (Deuteronomy 18:9).
Divining… is trying to find something through a divine contact. And that is forbidden.
John MacArthur
If a person performs any of these sorceries, that person is detestable to God. That person is an abomination to God. And lest someone wrongly claim that the Deuteronomy verse is outdated just because it’s Old Testament, sorceries are also forbidden in the New Testament. Revelation 18:23 and Galatians 5:19-21 strenuously forbid such practices.
However, so-called evangelicals partner with Downey as if her abominable practices are of no account! Dr. David Jeremiah platformed her in his church because they wrote the Bible series together, and Beth Moore participated with Downey in a Bible conference!
You see how easily divination can become mixed in with the pure and holy truth, and even overlooked- or at least unremarked. What Christians are tasked to do is not titillate unbelievers with unbiblical stories of heaven and hell, but call them to repentance over their sins and fall on the feet of our Holy God. Paul was given glimpse of the third heaven and it was too wonderful to speak of and unlawful as well. (2 Corinthians 12:2–4).
Once the truth is in them, then they will read the Bible and understand what has been revealed by God about heaven and all other matters. Seeking information through divination, sorcery, witchcraft etc is abominable to God. God described what He wanted to describe about heaven via His Spirit who inspired men to write about it in the Bible. That is the ONLY place to seek information. A person cannot understand these matters unless they are spiritually comprehended by a regenerated mind.
But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14).
We regenerated believers have a duty to those who are so obviously curious, so obviously searching for hope of another life after death. Jesus called us to be His ambassadors and witnesses. We have the HOPE and we have the TRUTH. Let’s share it far and wide. Those whom the Lord will open their ears to hear, He will open. For, how will they believe unless they have heard? Romans 10.
I started doing a podcast for The End Time blog on April 3, 2021. It’s just me, reading what I wrote. But my goal for both this writing ministry and podcast ministry is to exhort for godly living through correct theology, and to point women to solid resources achieving that end. I’m no theologian, there are so many others out there with more insight, deeper comprehension, and more skill. So my blog is just a few of my thoughts, and a point in the direction of a more thorough exegesis.
To achieve the goal of getting good material in front of women, when Anchor/Spotify came along and partnered with WordPress to seamlessly include a podcast, I jumped on it. I thought, if women are busy with kids, chores, or work outside the home, then listening would be attainable than reading, more easily included in her day than sitting down and reading. She could listen in the car, while waiting at the doctor, or when folding laundry.
I enjoy reading the material I write. With I think only 5 exceptions using the bot to read it, I’ve recorded it myself. I like doing it. I enjoy it as much as when I read to my students at school.
When I started I didn’t put episode numbers on the podcast or divide it into ‘seasons’. It was all I could do to work in this extra task in the morning (when I usually publish, record, edit, do show notes, and post on multiple social media sites, from 5:30-6:15am before work!) A lot of that is manual.
As of today, I’ve done 553 episodes, or podcasts. I began it on April 3, 2021. There are 295 episodes in 2021. There are so far 258 episodes in 2022. The change is: Starting tomorrow I’ll tag each episode with an episode and season number. So while the previous 553 won’t have a tag or number (I contacted Anchor and they said ‘no can do’), the ones going forward, will.
Therefore, October 24, 2022’s episode will read, for example “Season 2, episode 259: Peeking into ‘the other side’- Two Questions (part 1)”.
I’ve got 4 blogs written and ready and 4 more half written and almost ready for the week ahead. I praise the Holy Spirit for sustaining this ministry, giving me ideas, and energizing me to keep going. I’ve written on The End Time every day since January 9, 2009. I started on Blogspot, then imported most of the blogs from Blogspot to here (some didn’t transfer, there was a byte limit). On WordPress I’ve published 5,930 original essays with few repeats.
Now add the podcast to that, the 553 episodes I’ve recorded. Growth has been amazing. Of those 553 podcast episodes, there have been 182,000 plays! Thank you!
So don’t be surprised when you see an added season and episode number attached to each upcoming episode. It’s the best way to keep them organized, I think, or to tag one when referring to another.
It’s funny. Growing up there was no internet. I started when I was in Grad school insisting on getting a computer because I was in a Literacy program and there was a lot of writing. I was tired of the typewriter and whiteout. I got a slow, huge desktop in 1996, added Word, and never looked back. I went online in 1997. It was windows 3.1, lol, and a 330 baud AOL landline dialup. And back then, we thought it was GREAT. And it was. Truly amazing.
Oh how far we’ve come! Kids today gasp when I tell them that “in my day” there was no internet, no TikTok, no Youtube, and no cellphones. I am grateful for the opportunity to get edifying material out to women who today alone have read or listened from 37 different countries. It’s gratifying – and humbling. I’m doing my best to keep up with the times and stay fresh with the technology available. My dearest wish is that God would be glorified in what I do and that women who come here would glorify him too with something they’ve learned, asked, or followed up at one of the resources I share.
So that’s the update- adding season and episode numbers, and a huge thank you to you, the reader and listener!
listen at all the usual places online- iTunes, Spotify, Anchor, Radio Public, Pocket Casts, etc.
Sundays are a good time to ponder who God is. He is worthy of service and worship. We have been taking a look at God’s attributes each Sunday. Links to previous weeks are below. Most definitions are taken from Tim Challies’ visual theology chart of the attributes of God.
Remember, God’s attributes are not parts that make up a whole. Everything good that there is, is 100% contained in God. He is 100% beauty, 100% aseity, 100% omniscient, etc. He is complete in Himself.
Tim Challies explained: “To study God’s attributes is to study his character, to answer questions like, Who is God? and What is God like? A typical classification of God’s attributes divides them into those that are incommunicable (those that he does not share or “communicate” to anyone or anything else) and communicable (those that he shares with other beings). Like most theological classifications, this one is imperfect but still helpful as we seek to understand what is so far beyond ourselves. God’s communicable attributes can be further categorized into: attributes of God’s being, mental attributes, moral attributes, attributes of purpose, and “summary” attributes (attributes that, in a more particular way, modify each of the others).”
This is the final week in the series.
WILL: Attribute of purpose. God approves and determines to bring about every action necessary for the existence and activity of all that exists.
WISDOM: Mental Attribute. God always chooses the best goals and the best means to those goals.
WRATH. Moral Attribute. God intensely hates all sin.
Free ebook, Stephen Charnock’s The Existence and Attributes of God. THE standard bearer for discussion on God’s attributes. The hard copy of the book is big, over 1600 pages. It’s heavy. It’s expensive. It’s 2 volumes. FYI, Reformation Heritage Books is having a huge sale now. Charnock’s book in hard cover leather is only $70 down from $120.
2-volume set of Charnock’s book, The Existence and Attributes of God, on sale here. Beautiful volumes that would enhance any library’s aesthetic and best of all, your mind!
Monergism, where you can read Charnock’s work on the Attributes of God online for free, or download a free ebook, said,
“The Existence and Attributes of God has become a classic text on the doctrine of God, and examines in meticulous detail God’s foreknowledge and sovereignty, and discusses the possibility of free will and natural law. No Reformed theologian prior to Charnock treated God’s existence and attributes with such clarity and depth—in fact, his was one of the first works solely devoted to the subject to appear in the Reformed theological tradition, and has become a standard work on the subject. His positions have been echoed and refined by generations of theologians, and most recently have contributed to contemporary debates over free will, foreknowledge, and the openness of God.”
“No doubt the sheer size of the volume has caused not a few persons to direct their reading efforts elsewhere. This is regrettable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Charnock’s ability to combine rigorous theological discourse on the doctrine of God with the typical Puritan emphasis on “uses” of the doctrine (relating doctrine and life). His work has much value on a practical level, which should be the goal of all theology.”
The 2-volume set at Reformation Heritage Books includes:
Modernized Language: Archaic punctuation, words, and phrases have been updated for the modern reader
Updated Bibliographic Information: In the footnotes, Charnock’s sources have been located and updated with fuller bibliographic information, showing how widely read he was
Chapter Summaries: Each discourse begins with a summary of the chapter to follow
Extensive: Covers Charnock’s defense of God’s existence and 11 attributes of God
Includes In-Depth Chapter on the Life of Stephen Charnock by William Symington
Listen to an 8-minute podcast with Stephen Nichols of Ligonier (or read the transcript) discuss Charnock’s book with John MacArthur and how the Puritan volume was crucial for MacArthur in his twenties, how “it just totally altered how I viewed God, with a kind of vastness that put me in awe of Him.”
Learning about God through His attributes is worship. We can’t properly love and obey that which we do not know. I hope this series has been beneficial to you. All glory to God!
The Bible is clear that there is an order to the church. Certain things are to be done a certain way. No New Testament believer can be so unobservant of the Old Testament that they fail to see the specificity with which God expects worship. Though New Testament believers are not beholden to the OT ceremonial laws and bloody sacrifices (because Christ has come!) we are still cognizant of the fact that God is still God. He does not accept any old worship. Just ask Ananias and Sapphira.
One way that Jesus has ordered His church is that He is its head. (Ephesians 5:23). Then, under their submission to Jesus, some men are called to lead. (1 Timothy 3:2-7; 1 Timothy 5:17). Then, the rest of the men, women and children submit to their leaders. (Hebrews 13:17).
Women are not to be in authority over men in the church. 1 Timothy 2:12 says, “But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.“
I’m usually amazed at the genius of how some people can expertly twist plain verses into meaning something they do not mean. The depraved mind is cunning. After all, their father the devil is the most crafty creature of all. (Genesis 3:1). The verse also uses the word subtle. This is how satan deceives, makes the lie sound almost like the truth, subtly.
I came across this Twitter exposition of the issue of women teaching men, 1 Timothy 2:12 as I posted above. Stephen Michael Feinstein (@Ptr_StephenFein) wrote a thread a few years ago that has been unearthed and retweeted. It’s good. He goes through how people with an unholy agenda can exposit the plain meaning into a different meaning, subtly. Here is his exposition:
1/ A plain reading of 1 Timothy 2:12 seems to clearly favor the complementarian position. “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority.” In this thread, I will quickly break this down so that anyone can see the “exegesis” of both positions.
2/ Kostenberger demonstrates its grammatic structure as follows:
a negated finite verb (I do not permit)
governing an infinitive (to teach)
connected by the coordinating conjunction (or)
with a second infinitive (to exercise authority).
Pretty straightforward and simple.
3/Paul doesn’t permit women to do the infinitives, which are connected by the conjunction “or” οὐδὲ. Paul’s word choice for teach (διδάσκειν) is his normal word for good or faithful teaching. So one can’t say he is merely forbidding a type of false teaching (ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖν)
4/ So a plain reading has women in the church being restricted from teaching or exercising authority. So how do egalitarians “exegete” the passage to show it to mean something different? Well, first, they insist on a definition for the word “exercise authority” (αὐθεντέω),
5/ thus claiming it can only mean to “wrongly domineer or usurp.” If they are right, the text would still at this point forbid women from teaching. So what they do is they remove the coordinating conjunction (οὐδὲ) and read it as an adverbial clause. This now makes it modify
6/ the infinitive “to teach.” See below:
a negated finite verb (I do not permit)
governing an infinitive (to teach)
remove the coordinating conjunction (or)
change the second infinitive into an adverbial clause (in a domineering way).
7/ So they would translate the verse as, “I do not permit a woman to teach a man in a domineering way.” But think about it. In order to get this rendering, they had to remove a Greek word (οὐδὲ/or), and they had to change the second infinitive into an adverbial clause.
8/ Exegetically, this is unjustified. If Paul meant it to be adverbial, he would use a preposition rather than a conjunction. The fact is the text as it stands has a conjunction that connects two infinitives. So it means what the complementarians say it means. Also, the narrow
9/ egalitarian definition of “exercise authority” is hardly proven. So again, the grammar makes it clear Paul forbids two things, not one, and those two thing are women teaching and having authority over men in the church. Our culture may shriek, but that’s irrelevant.
10/ Egalitarians then appeal to an invented historical background dealing with church women smuggling in the pagan theology of the cult of Artemis, and this is all Paul is forbidding. Yet, there is not a single clue anywhere in 1 Timothy that this was an issue in the church. If
11/ anything, he dealt with Jewish myths, not pagan ones. So let me summarize. The egalitarian position requires the exegetical butchering of the words that are actually in the text, and then it requires an invented occasion of crisis that just happens to not even be hinted in
12/ the text, and on this basis they radically reinterpret the verse in a narrow sense to render it inapplicable in the 21st century. Let me just state plainly, it is obvious that no one would arrive at this position by an unbiased translation and study of the text. They instead
13/ must already possess an ideological bend that forces them to reject the clear complementarian nature of the text. Therefore, they change the text and the historical context to fit their a priori ideological bend. My friends, that is not exegesis. That is not even Christian.
–end Pastor Feinstein–
It’s clear that women usurping and failing to remain silent in the churches (not on blogs, radio, podcasts, or real life!) is a huge issue these days in Christian life. Women teaching men and preaching in church is not a secondary or tertiary issue, because it deals with creation order, the orderliness of the church, and the sin of disobedience. The persistence and strength with which satan disrupts this Godly template in marriage and in church (two of the three spheres God has ordained for restraining sin) is proof that it’s something satan fervently doesn’t want.
If you, ladies, have an urge to teach, this is admirable. There are many wonderful women teachers out there edifying us and ministering in Godly (and appropriate) ways. These Godly female teachers submit to God’s word and do not have a craving to usurp. They do not teach men in church or preach. Godly female teachers possess an understanding that worshiping God means adhering to His orderliness in all spheres of life.
If you have an urge to teach men or to preach in church, then check yourself, please. There is a vast difference between standing at a pulpit on a Saturday afternoon and teaching a Ladies Conference, than there is standing at the pulpit on a Sunday morning and preaching to the congregation, explaining and exegeting God’s word. That difference is the gulf between obedience and sin.
Don’t be fooled by the subtle word tricks of satan, and don’t convince yourself on the back of word play that it is OK to preach. It is not.
This week I wrote about the question where is heaven? Also I wrote about what we have to look forward to in heaven. In that essay I’d compared Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22, noting that they were the only books of the Bible that were free of any description of sin. I’d also written that though Genesis 1-2 are wonderful for showing God’s power of His word in creation, Revelation 21-22 were even better.
I wanted to bask in that glorious vision a bit more so I kept mulling over the verses in Revelation 21-22. I was struck when I read Revelation 22:1-2, “The River and the Tree of Life”. Some things jumped out at me. You know how that happens, you read it a million times but THIS time, some things capture your attention in a huge way like you’ve never read it before?
The River and the Tree of Life
Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2).
Though there are a LOT of things to ponder in just those two sentences, the two things that jumped out at me, were the tree’s location and the fruit.
EPrata photo
First, the tree. No matter the translation I read the verse in, it says the tree stood on either side of the river. How can THE tree, singular, stand on BOTH sides of a river? John Walvoord was puzzled too, and so are other commenters, according to him. He wrote:
“Interpreters have puzzled over this expression that the tree of life is on each side of the river. Some take this is as a group of trees. Others say that the river of life is narrow and that it flows on both sides of the tree. The tree of life was referred to in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:22, 24), where it was represented as perpetuating physical life forever. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat of the fruit of this tree. Earlier in Revelation (2:7) the saints were promised the “right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Walvoord, J. F. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 987). Victor Books.
We do know that Ezekiel 47 is another place where heaven is described. Trees are mentioned on the banks of this same river flowing out from the throne of God. In Ezekiel 47:12 we read,
And by the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. (Ezekiel 47:12).
But the Bible is consistent where the Tree of Life is mentioned, that it is A tree, or ONE tree, or THE Tree of Life.
But it could be that it’s as Ezekiel describes, a cluster of trees lining the banks of the River of Life. Or it could be as John describes in Revelation, ONE tree, on both sides of the river, possible since the eternal state does not necessarily have to abide by the laws of physics we have now. Or it could be as Roy Gingrich describes it below in his commentary on Revelation- the tree is in the river.
“A river of the water of life proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city’s street. In the midst of the river is the tree of life with its branches hanging over each bank of the river.” Gingrich, R. E. (2001). The Book of Revelation (p. 94). Riverside Printing.
Whichever way it is when we see the configuration of the tree of life and the river of the waters of life, it’s a fantastic thing to think of, the Tree of Life and the river of the waters of life, crystal and pure, ever-flowing.
The other thing that struck me was the fruit.
This tree monthly bears twelve kinds of fruits. If the Tree of Life is indeed one tree, how can one tree bear different kinds of fruit? Doesn’t the vegetation bear only its own kind? We read in Genesis 1:12,
The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.
Luke 6:44 says, For each tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.
However again, the dimension we will live in when we are glorified may not have the same laws of agriculture as we have now. Or perhaps since it is THE Tree of Life, it holds all life within it, including all kinds of seeds which bear all life-giving properties. It’s fun to think of.
By the way, the translation in the King James Version that we’re used to, that the tree’s leaves are for healing, doesn’t mean healing as in someone who is sick needs to get well. In the eternal state there will be no illness. As MacArthur said, rather than the leaves being medicine for healing, rather, they are like vitamins for flourishing. Both MacArthur and Gingrich commented that it may be more symbolic. That the expression used for tree and healing are anthropomorphic-
Its leaves are for the purpose of giving continuous health (not “healing,” K.J.V.) to the nations. The river represents the Spirit of God and the tree represents the Word of God. These two, the Spirit and the Word, keep the nations in perfect health. The variety of the fruit and frequency of the fruit picture God’s full and constant satisfaction of man’s religious and moral hunger. Gingrich, R. E. (2001). The Book of Revelation (p. 94). Riverside Printing.
MacArthur: Well, time has no part of eternity, but it does remind us that there are cycles. And it’s just another one of those anthropomorphic expressions to say something to us in terminology which we can understand. There will be a regular cycle of joyous provision, filled with variety, changing all the time … There’s going to be provided in heaven infinite variety, and there are going to be all kinds of things available in heaven, demonstrated by the symbolism of the leaves of that tree that are just going to energize life and just make it rich and full and exciting. (Source)
If you are feeling down, or troubled because of the times, firstly, avoid the secular news if you can. Secondly, pray to Jesus and lay your anxieties at His feet. Thirdly, read in the Bible of the wondrous things Jesus has in store for us. He is preparing that place and He will come back to retrieve His Bride from this polluted earth and play out His end plan. When it’s all over we have a glorious future ahead. The crystal River of the Waters of Life, Tree of Life, Street of Gold, no sin! And best of all, Jesus with us!
I love to linger in thoughts of the supernatural. God is supernatural, of course. He is above us here in the natural world. The Trinity is supernatural. Who can understand it? The creation in 6 days is supernatural, and amazing too. His omnipotence is surely on display right from the first verses of Genesis.
Angels are supernatural. Sometimes invisible hordes are all around us (2 Kings 6:17). And demons (unholy angels) are supernatural. They are real, led by satan, formerly the highest angel. The Bible depicts demon possession. Jesus spent quite a bit of time casting them out. Just because 2000 years have gone by does not mean the demons are gone. They are still around, and will make an even more prevalent appearance during the Tribulation. (Rev 9:3, Rev 16:14, Rev 18:2, Matthew 24:37).
Do you ever wonder where heaven is? Is it right there, in a nearby dimension we can reach out and touch? The unseen gathering chariots at Elisha’s battle were there and became visible after Elisha prayed and God graciously opened his servant’s eyes. (2 Kings 6:17-20).
Heaven is absolutely a real place, it has physical properties, inhabitants, and activities within it. Bible verses say that it is above the earth, or people are called to ‘come up here.’ Or that they ‘went down’ from heaven to earth. But that could be language indicating that its heights are gloriously high because of the One who dwells there.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus was changed as His glory shone out, and ‘suddenly’ He was speaking with Moses and Elijah personally and bodily. Is heaven parallel with us, alongside with us the whole time? After all, Jesus is omnipresent, and always ‘near.’ As Daniel was praying, before he even finished his request, Gabriel appeared. (Daniel 9:21). Is heaven that close?
I love the old story of the rich man who, on his death bed, negotiated with God to allow him to bring his earthly treasures with him when he came to heaven. God’s reaction was that this was a most unusual request, but since this man had been exceptionally faithful, permission was granted to bring along just one suitcase. The time arrived, the man presented himself at the pearly gates, suitcase in hand – BOTH hands, actually, since he had stuffed it with as many bars of gold bullion as would fit. St. Peter said, “Sorry, you know the rules – you can’t take it with you.” But the man protested that God said he could…one suitcase. St. Peter checked, found out that this one would be an exception, prepared to let the man enter, then said, “OK, but I will have to examine the contents before you pass.” He took the suitcase, opened it, saw the gold bars and asked quizzically, “You brought PAVEMENT?”
Certainly this cute story makes the point to us that what we value here on earth will not be what we value in heaven, wherever heaven may be now or in the future. We will value Jesus above all, His glory, His ways, His nail-scarred hands and riven side. We will value each other as HIS trophies of grace, having no pride, love and care for our brethren as Jesus cares for us. We will value past salvations borne from His grace, the cross, His plans and ways.
The most precious commodity currently on earth, gold, will then be just dusty matter under our feet, our eyes not upon its glitter any longer, but upon the glorious Light shining from every corner of the Universe, Jesus.
These are fun things to ponder. One of our Elders always says ‘Think Eternally!’ and, “We’re almost home!”
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Further reading
My essay was just a few thoughts, not an exhaustive or scholarly treatment of the location of heaven. Others have written aobut that, in the following links that may be of interest to you:
I love beginnings and endings, borders, edges. I love to see how things begin and how they end. That’s why I love Genesis and Revelation as my favorite books of the Bible.
Did you know that those two books are the only books of the Bible that have no sin in them? Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22. No sin. Bask in those chapters, my sisters, because those are a glimpse of what is to come. The rest of the Bible displays man’s sin-sin-sin all over the place. But Genesis 1 & 2 and Revelation 21-22 are pure and beautiful.
In Genesis 1 and 2 we have the honor of watching God create the world. His intellect is stupendous, the variety of the landforms, flora, and fauna are incredible. Even more so to know God did it all in 6 days. Even more so to understand He did it with a word.
Revelation 21-22 are even better than Genesis 1 & 2. Why? The glory of the LORD shines even brighter in people who have been redeemed by His son, and who have no more chance of sinning. The Sword of Damocles no longer hangs over Adam and Eve, and the glorified Bride shines in sinlessness in a place where no sin ever touched. How good is THAT?
In fact, the only man made thing in heaven will be the nail scars on Jesus’ hands.
Both the aforementioned chapters of Genesis and of Revelation have the Tree of Life. Eden had a river flowing out into the world past the Tree of Life, but New Jerusalem has the River of the Water of Life flowing past the tree! There was a marriage in Genesis 2, (Adam and Eve), but in Revelation 21 there is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!
This world is terrible. It has been since Genesis 3:1. Sin gushed in. I looked for named or blatant sins in Gen 3-9. We have the Original Sin: Disobedience to God’s word. Then shame and blame. We have murder, mocking God, lying. We have polygamy, violence, and threats of violence. And I’m only up to chapter 4. When God told Cain that sin was crouching at the door waiting to have him, He wasn’t kidding. Give sin an inch and it will take the world. And it did!
But the world will be remade so there will be no death or bones or sin. Everything will be pure, holy, and joyous.
the-end-time.org 