Women have made many contributions to Christianity. Women believers are an incredible resource, and not incidentally, made in God’s likeness and full participants in His faith.
However, it is also a fact that God made an order to things. Men are to lead in holy matters, women are to follow. Women are not to preach the word or be a shepherd. Women are wives, mothers, teachers of children, home-keepers, teachers of other women, missionaries, evangelists, supports to husbands and pastors, song writers, painters, discerners, and many other things. But we are not to be pastors.
Yet, in this millennium, women are. People think it’s about time. People think that’s normal. But it is not.
In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, formerly a solid church whose pastor was a two-time Southern Baptist Convention president and professorial theologian, they called a woman to lead them. The First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City released this press about their decision:
On Sunday, October 21, 2018 the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City voted to call Rev. Sarah Stewart as its senior pastor. Sarah will serve as the 19th pastor of the 128-year-old church and is the first woman to hold the position in the church’s history.
Mrs Stewart had previously held the position at that church of leading the prayer meeting and preaching occasionally on Sunday mornings. So this sin isn’t sudden, and it shouldn’t be surprising that the church chose a woman. The camel has has his nose under the tent for a while. Back in 1983 they began ordaining women as deacons. By 2001 the church voted to sever their affiliation with the conservative Southern Baptist Convention,citing their disagreement with the denomination over women preachers.
[Zurheide] also said First Baptist leaders disagree with the convention’s opposition to women serving as pastors and its requirement that wives “submit graciously” to their husbands.
There you have it, it has been 17 years coming. Or 35 years coming since the first cracks appeared. Not a long time in the face of 7000 years of humankind’s relationship to God, or 2000 years since Paul penned the words to Timothy that-
But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:12)
The church About Us page with the staff bios. Here is Sarah’s:
Sarah Stewart
Minister for Young Adults, since 2008
Although Sarah was born and raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma, she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Oklahoma. There she met and fell in love with Brad Stewart. After their marriage, she attended George W. Truett Theological Seminary where she earned her Master’s in Divinity. She has served as the youth minister at FBC Norman, Oklahoma and at FBC Rosebud in Texas. She and Brad have three wonderful sons: Noah, Luke and Griffin.
“I have a hunger to learn and grow closer to God. I enjoy leading the prayer meeting and Adult Bible study on Wednesday nights and preaching occasionally on Sunday mornings. I have the best job! I get to work with young people who are eager to learn, ready to debate and wrestle with theological questions, and some of the first ones to roll up their sleeves to serve their community.”
I have written twice this week, at length, about the dangers of women leading men in areas in which God has not ordained. Rebellion of any sort will not be tolerated by the Sovereign Holy One. Repercussions occur. In Thyatira, Jesus promised to kill the metaphorical Jezebel and her spiritual daughters dead. Her crime? Claiming personal revelation from God and teaching things they ought not. He was not impressed with those who disagreed but still tolerated her. Tolerating her sin was a sin. He said “I have this against you.” (Revelation 2:20).
Do we in 2018 believe that being in open rebellion is not an affront to God? That tolerating open rebellion is not an affront to God? These people who submit to a woman pastor are either ignorant of the scriptures or tolerating what God has not ordained. There will be repercussions.
For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17, NASB)
The issues that corrupted churches in the first century are the same threats facing the church today: idolatry, sexual immorality, compromise with the world and its pagan culture, spiritual deadness, and hypocrisy. Over the intervening centuries, the church has not outgrown these familiar pitfalls. Nor has God lowered or softened His righteous standard. Regardless of when and where it exists, He demands a pure church. (Source Judgment Begins at the House of God, by John MacArthur)
I pray that the Spirit convicts Sarah Stewart and she abdicates her position. At First Baptist Church Oklahoma City, they do not have a church, nor do they have a pastor. But Jesus is on His throne.
You know how some people jokingly say he or she ‘broke the internet’? Well, Anne Hutchinson broke the colony.
History hasn’t been that kind to Puritan wife Anne Hutchinson. She is either portrayed as an oppressed early feminist denied her identity, or a screeching harridan who deserved what she got. She has been called a heroine, an American Jezebel, an instrument of satan, poison, and a great imposter (the negative ones were all from John Winthrop).
Of course the truth is somewhere in the middle.
The introductory entry in this series on Puritan Wives is here. If you’d like to read some background to the Puritan emigration and founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony, you can read that link.
Sometimes we think of our historical brethren as backward or uneducated, but in fact Puritan Massachusetts was populated with highly literate people, and that included the women, unusual for the time. The 1600s was an era when women were mainly quiet at home, revered, but out of the public eye. However, Hutchinson was loud and active. An intelligent, complex, wayward mother of 15 children, she was tried and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Exiled at age 47 in 1638 and left with nowhere to go, she traipsed to Rhode Island where she was welcomed by that colony’s founder, also-exiled Roger Williams.
That was the end of the end of the Antinomian controversy but not the end of Anne Hutchinson.
Anne was born Anne Marbury in 1591 in Alford, England. Her father was an Anglican cleric. Being literate himself and a teacher, he educated Anne to the fullest.
The family moved to London and lived there a while, but when Anne married childhood friend William Hutchinson she moved back to Alford. There, they enjoyed John Cotton’s sermons. Cotton was an outstanding theologian and a dynamic preacher, a combination not often found. Cotton was extremely well thought of.
Cotton was an Anglican preacher who had served for 20 years by the time the Hutchinsons met up with him. He believed the Church needed reforms, such as divesting itself of ritual and ceremony, but did not want to separate from it. He wanted to change it from within. As time went on, though, his consistent attitude against the framework of the Anglican church and his continual speaking against it eventually exceeded the leniency his overseers gave him, and pressure forced him out. He sailed for Massachusetts in 1633.
Devastated, Anne prompted her husband to follow Cotton. In 1634, the Hutchinsons packed up their 14 children and decided to follow Cotton to the new Colony that had been established just 13 years prior.
The Hutchinsons and William’s brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, were quickly accepted into the life of the colony. Anne was a midwife, and she met and discipled many women on her normal rounds. Being articulate and a deep thinker, many women sought her commentary on the Bible. Anne soon began holding weekly meetings at her home, commenting on Cotton’s sermons.
So far, so good. A woman ministering to her fellow sisters in body and soul is what the Bible tells us ladies to do. (Titus 2:3-4). Mothering in midwifery and ministering spiritually to sisters in the colony is a good thing.
However, it wasn’t long before notoriety and interest caused men to attend her meetings, which were ever-expanding. Anne’s commentary was insightful, but a woman leading men in preaching and teaching, even in the privacy of a home, is a dangerous endeavor spiritually. The tendency to usurp is great, and that is what Anne did when she taught and preached to men.
Does sin ever only get worse? Yes. Eventually, Anne did not restrict her home meetings’ topics solely to dissecting/discussing her pastor’s sermons, she strayed into dissecting other ministers’ sermons, too, usually negatively. She criticized heavily.
More men began showing up, women too. Her ‘talks’ gravitated to mainly criticism of everyone else besides her favorite, John Cotton. She began to call names, and impugn character. She hinted that some were antichrists. She said that these other pastors were preaching a covenant of works, while the only true pastor, Cotton, was preaching rightly, the covenant of grace.
In looking at the two sides of the theological debate, it seems to me that both sides were right and both sides were wrong. However, the nuances of this soon-to-be schism are not the purview of this essay, and besides, many other people smarter than me have written on it.
My goal is to look at Anne Hutchinson’s life, and the effects of a rebellious woman’s actions and how they harm the body.
Several of the named pastors naturally took a dim view of her preaching, and there was a meeting held to discuss what to do. John Winthrop, the spiritual leader of the Puritans at that time, was equally, if not more angered.
And the sin deepened. Soon Hutchinson began to encourage women to rise up and walk out of sermons that preached doctrines with which she did not agree. Walking out is a disdainful, rebellious act. But many women did it.
The meetings continued, only growing in number. Anne’s dissections of others’ sermons, were not God-glorifying nor encouraging to pastors. Nor did they focus on educating the attendees and enlighten them as to Jesus as Savior. Nor did they prompt the people to good works. They were simply to point out the pastor’s errors and to cement her own position which she believed to be righteous. Think of the worst discernment ministries running today, who lack love, and who never lift up but only tear down, and that was the situation between 1636-1638 with Anne.
Anne was spurred on by people who should know better.
A male admirer put it this way-
“I’ll bring you to a woman who preaches better gospel than any of your black-coats who have been at the ninnyversity, a woman of another kind of spirit who has had many revelations of things to come….I had rather such a one who speaks from the mere notion of the Spirit without any study at all than any of your learned scholars.” (Source)
One of Anne’s doctrines was that a person did not need any clergy, but could be guided by their own inner light. Anne was correct that the Spirit dwelling in us illuminates the scriptures to our mind, but incorrect that we need no clergy at all to explain the scriptures to us.
Note that “Inner light” is a Quaker term. Quakerism was rising at the time, in fact, another woman, Mary Dyer, supported Hutchinson but was later hanged as a rebel. The Quakers did not believe in baptism, formal prayer and the Lord’s Supper, nor did they believe in an ordained ministry. Each member was a minister in his or her own right, women were essentially treated as men in matters of spirituality, and they relied on an “Inner Light of Christ” as their source of spiritual inspiration, according to Dyer’s Wiki entry.
The equality of men and women in Quakerism, the lack of ordained ministry (to whom church members submit) and the inner light were all things Hutchinson would have been attracted to. It was this the admirer above was hinting at. Quakerism was anathema to Puritans and they enacted many laws against it.
Right, the statue of Hutchinson on the Massachusetts State House at 24 Beacon Street, Boston, MA. Still so controversial 375 years after death, and almost 100 years after the statue was commissioned, the original recipient, the Public Library, refused it and the Legislature ignored it for 2 years. It was finally installed in 2005. Story here: A heretic’s overdue honor
And Anne’s sin just deepened and deepened. It wasn’t long before Hutchinson began spouting personal revelations and prophecies. The apex of this was at her trial for sedition and heresy. Anne’s behavior had spawned a schism, had encouraged women to rebel, and caused a region-wide argument on the finer points of works v. grace. It also exiled her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright. It damaged Cotton’s reputation for years to come. The colony itself was suffering over this to the point of collapse. Winthrop’s “city on a hill” was only after a few years mired in petty bickering and politically unstable, caused no less by a woman. She had to be stopped.
Hutchinson was put on trial, after various attempts to get her to stop, recant, and repent. Hutchinson held firm. In her trial, she bested every single man in a theological debate, including Winthrop, who never forgave her as we’ll see later.
It might have gone her way, except at the last, she overstepped, and claimed that God Himself had told her these things. The initial charge of sedition was not met with a preponderance of evidence, due to her skill in theological combat. However when Hutchinson insisted God spoke to her personally, she was charged with blasphemy and exiled. In the spring, she moved to nearby Rhode Island and founded Portsmouth. Her husband and many of her children were already there.
Anne Hutchinson is noted as “a woman of conscience who yielded to no authority”, as quoted in this book about fellow Puritan preacher William Wentworth. Today’s feminists laud Hutchinson’s stance, but Christians know that is not the way. Of course we yield to authority.
Her friend and pastor John Cotton noted the missteps and sins Hutchinson committed,
Three things I told her made her spiritual estate unclear to me.
1. That her Faith was not begotten nor (by her relation) scarce at any time strengthened, by publicke Ministry, but by private Meditations, or Revelations, onely….
2. That she clearly discerned her Justification (as she professed:) but little or nothing at all, her Sanctification: though (she said) she believed such a thing there was by plain Scripture….
3. That she was more sharply censorious of other men’s spiritual estates and hearts, then the servants of God are wont to be, who are more taken up with judging of themselves before the Lord, then of others. Source: The New England Antinomian Controversy, Monergism
The first two are part of the theological controversy, but it’s the third I’d like to draw your attention to. Hutchinson rebelled against the scriptures, namely 1 Timothy 2:12 by teaching men. She and was unconcerned and unrepentant about it. She also failed to submit to her leaders, as Hebrews 13:17 says to do. Open and constant criticism of your leaders by disparaging them and encouraging walk-outs, is sin. (Also 1 Thessalonians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 16:16). Anne seems to have been unconcerned about the rift she was causing, and the word submit didn’t seem to be in her vocabulary. When she knew she was causing a problem, she did not repent, but persisted. This violated Romans 12:16, as she did not live in harmony with one another and failed to be humble. See also 1 Peter 3:8.
Left, John Cotton by John Smibert
Hutchinson was seen even by her lone supporter as overly judgmental and critical, as John Cotton enumerated in his list, #3.
How many Proverbs did Anne Hutchinson violate? She was not the meek, kind, quiet woman Proverbs calls us to be. She did not tend to her house (Proverbs 14:1). She was contentious, quarrelsome, and loud.
The woman of folly is boisterous, She is naive and knows nothing. (Proverbs 9:13).
When we step outside God’s ordained spheres for us, chaos ensues. I’m not speaking solely of women stepping into leadership or usurping men. Children are called to live in obedience to their parents. Men are supposed to lead the household. John Winthrop wrote of Anne’s husband William,
a man of very mild temper and weak parts, and wholly guided by his wife,
There are spheres for all of us, and when we set them aside for our own glory or our own purposes, even for a deeply held conviction or our conscience, chaos comes.
Anne’s positive influence could have been great. She was mother of 15 children, many of them boys. Her insights and strong theological knowledge could have raised up a new generation of founding fathers for our nation. If Anne had remained in her mid-wifery and women’s Bible study sphere, and tended to her home, who knows what might have come of it.
As it was, there were a few positives from the negatives of the Anne Hutchinson controversy. Winthrop sought a colonial confederation to unite the colonies. The men banded together and established Harvard College, initially a seminary to train up the generation of men, as this quote indicates,
To provide a bulwark against remnants of Hutchinson’s free-grace theology, just two weeks after she was banished the General Court of Massachusetts finally released funds in November 1637 to establish the “College at Newtowne” (renamed Harvard in 1639)
Third, it spurred Roger Williams to deepen his conviction that there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state. Hutchinson was tried as a seditionist and a heretic, and eventually convicted of blasphemy. Williams thought that-
the magistrate should not punish religious infractions—meant that the civil authority should not be the same as the ecclesiastical authority. The second idea—that people should have freedom of opinion on religious matters—he called “soul-liberty.” It is one of the foundations for the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Williams’ use of the phrase “wall of separation” in describing his preferred relationship between religion and other matters is credited as the first use of that phrase, and Thomas Jefferson’s source in later writing of the wall of separation between church and state in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.
It was effectively the end of the city on the hill Winthrop had wanted to establish. His theocracy was no more.
Banishment from Mass. Bay Colony. Wikimedia. It took 6 days to walk to RI
Hutchinson was not the only bad actor in this debacle. John Winthrop behaved badly too. (Among others). Anne was in her mid-forties when the trial occurred. She was either pregnant during the trial or shortly after. She emigrated to Rhode Island the spring after the trial ended and shortly afterward, gave birth. The issue from the birth was not a baby but what is believed to have been a hydatidiform mole, or molar pregnancy. It was a mass of tumors, not a baby. Knowing the outcome of it being publicly known, the Hutchinsons had it quickly and secretly buried. However, Winthrop heard about it, sought the grave, got it exhumed, and used the tragedy as ‘proof’ that his stance was right. He wrote of it widely: ‘see how the wisdom of God fitted this judgment to her sin every way, for look—as she had vented misshapen opinions, so she must bring forth deformed monsters.”
This to me, is a total lack of charity and speaks ill of his own character. Later, when it appeared that Massachusetts was set to annex Rhode Island (it never happened), fearing reprisals, Anne and her children (her husband had passed away by then) moved out of Winthrop’s reach and into New York, the Netherlands’ territory. A year later, Anne and all but one of her children were killed in an Indian massacre. Many New England pastors wrote gloating reports of her death. Winthrop called her upon her death “An American Jezebel.” I pray that today’s pastors are more charitable and loving toward their own sectarian.
If you’re a woman beset by conscience due to doctrinal difference with your pastor, what should you do? Well, not usurp the men, criticize openly, and encourage walkouts. Certainly don’t put words into God’s mouth that your stance is directly from Him.
First, decide if your difference is a salvific one or a secondary or tertiary issue. Next, pray, for your pastor, but for yourself too. Pray for wisdom and enlightenment. Perhaps you are wrong!
Then, be patient. You’re not the only one to have spotted an issue that threatens the church. Perhaps other men are working on it behind the scenes. Not everything depends on you. Be patient.
If it continues or worsens, then make an appointment to see the pastor, with your husband if possible. Ask questions to learn, don’t go in with guns blazing thinking you know it all. Ask, be an eager hearer.
Return home and be more patient. Let the information you’ve gained sink in, consult your husband, and read the Bible. Pray some more. Resist the temptation to gossip about it to mount up soldiers for your side.
As time goes on you might be relieved to find the Lord has resolved this issue, or you might find it worsening and have to make decisions. If you decide to leave your church, leave well.
Anne Hutchinson was an amazing colonialist who had much to offer the colony and her church. Unfortunately, she went outside the bounds of the ordained spheres for a woman and she caused upset, schism, and was a negative role model. There’s no doubt though, she was formidable and earned a place in American history. As a wife, though, the more negative Proverbs speak of her and women like her than do the positive ones.
Be peaceable, And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, (2 Timothy 2:24)
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A few resources I used for background, sources for you too
There are staunchly defended and heatedly argued “opinions” concerning man’s “free-will” faith (the heart’s object is “self”) and his personal work of “inviting, allowing, and/or accepting” Christ VS. faith (the heart’s object is Jesus) that is supplied by God in and through His sovereign act of
(1) drawing one to Christ and
(2) saving them.
There are very heated intra- and inter-denominational disagreements about “Lordship Salvation” (one repents and surrenders to Christ’s Lordship at the moment of saving faith–the heart’s object is Jesus) VS. a believer “finally making Jesus the Lord of their life” (sometime much later, usually long after they’ve decided to “invite, allow, and/or accept” Christ as Saviour–the heart’s object remains “self”).
And yet it truly is a penitent heart where God works His saving work! It is our broken heart for sin that makes us hear His Words clearly–and we respond! I agree with Thomas Watson, “True faith is always in a heart bruised for sin.”
We obtain saving faith by hearing the Gospel exhorted from God’s undiluted, unedited, unaltered, and inerrant Word preached by His true and faithful servants. Truly, a penitent and believing heart is pricked to respond to God’s drawing them to Christ, for God Himself provides that one the faith necessary to believe, repent, and follow Jesus as Saviour, Lord, and Master. It is terribly sad that more often than not, a hard and impenitent heart will remain unaffected.
It may become a “pretender,” but as stated by Thomas Watson, “it is not [of] the true faith.”
As I was talking with a church friend last night at our church bonfire, he asked me about my writing. He wondered if I make a schedule of what essays I’m going to write for the week. I said I try to do an outline listing some draft subjects of blog essays for the week, but more often than not, it gets sidetracked by other things that come up.
I said that I marvel that I’ve written daily for 9 years, and over 4,000 essays, and that it is the Spirit who gives me ideas, time, energy, and resources to do it. He is an endless well, who never runs out of ways to prompt me to do an essay on a particular subject. It is tremendous. I never have to worry aobut “What am I going to write”, because somehow, things always come together, even if it’s not on a subject I originally intended at the outset of the week.
I wonder how it was for the Bible writers. As a writer, I know what the writing process feels like. I know that sometimes it’s a struggle to put thoughts down in the way I want, or how to wrestle with a topic that is too large for this space, and how to distill it into consumable sections so the reader isn’t overwhelmed… What must it have been like for them to be directly inspired by the Spirit to God-breathe HIS words onto paper! It must have been thrilling and frightening at the same time. When I get to heaven I’d love to talk with any of the Bible writers about how it was for them to pen God’s thoughts.
This week on my little blog and from my tiny brain, lol, the following subjects are on my list. It remains to be seen if I write on these this week or if I wind up on a completely different rabbit trail
Monday: Puritan Wives- Anne Hutchinson: Screeching Usurper, or Passionate Disciple?
Tuesday: A local-to-me incident and my thoughts on it
Wed: The weight of the cross
Thu: Throwback
Fri: On Reading
Sat: A Day in the Life of a Fisherman
Sun: Word of the week: Fruit of the Spirit, Peace
I had a list last week and most of the subjects were completed into published essays except for one. Soemthing came up and I swerved from the outline I’d made for myself. That’s OK, it is the writing life. Flexibility is important and things arise that occupy my attention or oare more timely.
This most often happens when I am doing Bible reading and I become fixated on something I read. You know that feeling, when your concentration drills down like a laser on one thing and the Spirit keeps it turning over and over in your mind…
Sometimes I do a shorter or a different essay because simply, I’m tired when I get home. The school day is busy and the sensory input of being among flouorescent lights, 500 children, and a staff of 50, with bells ringing and a LOUD lunchroom, sometimes just overcomes me and I empty out into a fleshly lump at the end of the day, sitting there looking at a blinking cursor, breathing but not thinking. Oh well! 🙂
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful day & week. My plan is to settle in after work and research Anne Hutchinson’s life as a wife. It’s a huge subject, so we’ll see how it goes.
Sometimes the pot warms its water so slowly even the most discerning frog swimming in it doesn’t realize the change in temperature in his environment until it’s too late. Even though this isn’t scientifically true, “the story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly,” as Wikipedia explains.
It was a given that for more than 2000 years women are not to be teachers or preachers of men. We women can and do teach, we minister, and we evangelize. We discuss, we help, we clarify perhaps in a private setting, but we are not to have biblical authority over men in church expository situations.
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
How is a women preaching to men a sinister situation? It’s sin. As RC Sproul said, sin is cosmic treason!
Ask the metaphorical Jezebel of Revelation 2:20 who was teaching things God did not say. Jesus promised to kill her and her followers. Inserting words into God’s mouth is sin.
Look at the Garden. One certain fruit was eaten against God’s command, and the entire race of humankind was polluted with sin. Ignoring what God said is sin.
What God says to do or not do matters. We don’t need 50,000 verses. One is enough. Women are not allowed to teach the Bible to men.
But Beth Moore does.
She has been doing it for 30 years.
Woe to Beth Moore.
A female generation is about 25 years. Therefore, it’s woe to the generation of women coming up in Christian circles who have for the entire time been seeing Moore’s preaching to men as normal, even with her pastor’s overt blessing, or the tacit blessing of her denomination the Southern Baptist Convention and its arm, Lifeway.
For years Moore taught Bible to a co-ed Sunday School class of 600-700 people as you read in that link above and later up to 900 people as stated in this link:
At that time, God began to do a new thing, stirring the heart of Beth to move to a new meeting place, meeting time, change the name of the class, and allow men to attend.
Is it God stirring the heart of a woman to disobey scripture and to teach men? I think not. In Revelation 2:23 it’s noted that Jesus will strike Jezebel’s children dead. These are not Jezebel’s biological children, but the spiritual daughters she is raising up in her polluted, sinful likeness.
The 1 Timothy scripture seems not to bother Moore. She has not repented of this cosmic treason. She describes her origins as a Bible teacher. Her Sunday School class began in 1985 and she was still teaching it in 2005. Her class almost from the beginning had a mixed audience.
Being a woman called to leadership within and simultaneously beyond those walls [of an SBC church] was complicated to say the least but I worked within the system. After all, I had no personal aspirations to preach nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. ~Beth Moore
It does not matter if you “had personal aspirations to preach” to men or not. If you do, you’re sinning. If you fail to stop it, you’re sinning.
How did this begin? Moore began teaching an aerobics class in Texas in the 80s at her church. It gravitated somehow (don’t ask me how, that’s a leap I can’t figure) to a Bible class in 1985. That soon turned to a co-ed class, then a 600-700 member coed class.
Moore eventually founded Living Proof Ministry in 1994. By 2003 her Living Proof Live conferences had gone beyond the confines of her church and beyond the Texas border. A national magazine took notice. Their opening sentence called her a minister.
“Once a victim of abuse, Beth Moore is one of America’s most popular ministers today.”
The article went on to note that men attended her Sunday School class. It was popular, so crowded with both sexes that attendees were asked to car pool because the parking lot was so jammed.
But the crowded conditions don’t seem to deter them. Not even the men, who came for a while in large numbers, were put off–until the ministry limited them by asking them to sit in the back, and if necessary, give up their seats to women. It is a women’s Bible study, after all. And though men are not restricted from attending, they aren’t encouraged, either. The selectivity has nothing to do with the location. With her pastor’s sanction, Beth teaches a co-ed Sunday school class of 600 to 700 in the same Southern Baptist church each week. But her ministry “really is to women,” she says. “My love is women in the body of Christ.” [emphasis mine]
An obedient teacher says “My love is for Christ and His word, and I asked the pastor to restrict the class to women only.” But as Beth Moore said above, “I didn’t throw them out. I taught.” She sought bigger rooms to accommodate them all.
The ‘aw, shucks, I’m really just a women’s teacher’ won’t cut it when pleading for mercy in front of the throne. Failure to obey the Word is failure to obey. She has been a usurper from the beginning.
And she keeps on teaching.
In 2010 when her fame was rising, Christianity Today did a 6-page cover story on her. The article cites the following:
Before she begins, she addresses the few men in the crowd. A Southern Baptist, Moore emphasizes that her ministry is intended for women. “The gentlemen who had such courage to come into this place tonight, into this estrogen fest if you will ever find one in your entire life: we are so blessed to have you,” Moore says. “I do not desire to have any kind of authority over you.”
It’s laughable to pronounce a blessing on the men in attendance, welcome them, preach the Bible to them, and then meekly deny any authority over them. Is her teaching from the Word authoritative over the women but not the men sitting next to them? Or do the women reject her authority to teach and they’re just coming, say, for the music? You see the illogic. If she teaches authoritatively, she teaches authoritatively to all in the hearing of it.
As far as Moore’s coyness that she does not desire to be authoritative over them, this is false. Genesis 3:16 tells us it is IN us to want to usurp male authority. It doesn’t matter if you desire to break God’s command or not, if you DO, you’re sinning. Try telling the traffic policeman that “I did not desire to speed on the highway” and see if he lets you go.
The Christianity Today story is page not found anymore. However, the link is here in the web archive split into 6 pages if you want to see the source.
Moore’s occasional weak protest, that men attend her classes and conferences on their own volition so it isn’t really her fault, doesn’t hold water. She taught men in her SS class for 20 years. By 2012, she was personally asked to substitute for pastor Louie Giglio preaching the Sunday Service at Louie Giglio’s Passion City Church, and she accepted. It was Holy Week, and she preached John 19 to a very, VERY large crowd of congregants. Some of these people, men included, lined up two hours early just to hear her.
Brian Dodd was one of those men. He attended Passion City Church that weekend and wrote a recap of her sermon. Gushing about how Moore is “a church leader” and how excited he was that he showed up hours early.
Moore affirmed on her blog that she was asked to preach at Giglio’s church and that she accepted.
Screen grabs from videos like this in 2012 harm women when they see a female on stage preaching from the Bible shoulder to shoulder with men. It’s visual egalitarianism. Photos like this are damaging. L-R, Lecrae, Moore, Chan, Giglio, Piper preaching at Passion Conference in 2012:
In addition to Moore’s actual preaching to men, a sin, she sins by failing to separate from other women who preach and call themselves pastors. She encourages women in their preaching to men.
We must separate from false teachers and heretics. Moore does not do that, and by her continued support of these people, and they of her, more confusion is added to the body of believers, particularly younger women. Women are the weaker vessel, (1 Peter 3:7), gullible to false teaching if we are unrepentant (2 Timothy 3:6), and our flesh wants to usurp the husband (Genesis 3:16). It is unwise to partner with heretics and to encourage them. By partnering with them, Moore proves her allegiance.
After decades of teaching men and preaching to men, any declarations otherwise are only lip service.
If a woman publicly preaches to men for decades, is seemingly accepted in this role, and even promoted in it, the cumulative damage to the greater body of women is great. In June 2018, the Washington Post published an incredible article about Moore. The title was,
She has her audience laughing, tearing up and clapping, much like they would listening to any great preacher.
The article’s author notes that the Southern Baptist Convention doesn’t allow female preachers, and then went on for a paragraph describing how Moore gets around it by using tweets, books, and speaking engagements as her pulpit. The article also describes how Moore is the face of global evangelism and is personally the transition linchpin for this new future:
Moore is one of the evangelical leaders today who represent the future of the global church, in which people outside Europe and the United States will be dominant. … Moore represents this transition, which is shaping even the most conservative corners of evangelicalism.
There is the danger. After so many decades of preaching and teaching, Moore has warmed the pot and the girl froglets see women preaching to men from pulpits, in churches, at conferences, or other settings, as normal. Desirable. Meanwhile, despite the Bible’s instruction to women to be gentle, meek, quiet, and industrious, tending to their homes and children, Moore has become culturally confrontational. Political. As the lengthy article about Moore last month in The Atlantic reveals,
“Privately, however, Moore has never cared much for the delicate norms of Christian femininity.”
We know. If she did, she would not preach to men. The pot is boiling now. Is this what we want for our young women? Women who are confrontational, rebellious, vocal, political, taking on the culture, preaching to men, partnering with other rebellious preacher women and ignoring her home duties?
Though she often performs domestic femininity for her audience, in her own life she has balanced motherhood with demanding professional ambitions. She traveled every other weekend while her two daughters were growing up—they told me they ate a lot of takeout. Source The Atlantic
Writers like J. Lee Grady would love to see more women preach like Moore does. He writes in Ministry Today Magazine that it’s finally about time that women take the reins in the pulpit.
What is baffling about this whole experience is that there are large numbers of Christians today who don’t believe Beth Moore should be preaching to [mixed gender] audiences like the one in Orlando. In fact, some fundamentalists have launched attacks on her because she preaches authoritatively from pulpits.
We need an army of women like Beth Moore, and my prayer is that more women will seek the Lord and dig into His Word with the same passion that Moore has. I believe she is a forerunner for a new generation of both men and women who will carry a holy Pentecostal fire that cannot be restricted by gender.
The Washington Post predicts that, as well. Grady’s desire may yet come true. There was talk this summer of Moore being nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Her virtue signalling tweets, politically charged ‘Open Letters‘ on social media and timely hopping onto cultural topics such as social justice are akin to a Senator’s moves before a presidential run.
Imagine, within one generation a woman whose former claim to fame was the latest aerobics moves climbed steadily up to being seriously considered for president of the world’s largest denomination, a conservative one, at that. One generation, after 2000 years of holding fast to scripture on this issue. Sin is amazing in its power.
I began this essay chronicling Moore’s journey to normalizing women’s usurpation of men from the pulpit by saying ‘It was a given that for more than 2000 years women are not given to be teachers or preachers of men.’ It was. It WAS. Past tense.
Yet the LORD our God is still on His throne and He still maintains a hard line on the roles women and men are to operate within in His church. That is a given.
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Corinthians 14: 33-35).
“I don’t have time to read.” I hear this a lot. I say this a lot. I used to read widely and incessantly before I was saved. Nowadays I am working a day job and ministering/serving at night, with Bible reading too. That leaves me either no time to read other books or tired eyes if I do have time. The pile of books grows high and the finished pile is small.
I’m preparing an essay “On Reading” for later this week, but in researching for it, and in researching for another essay I’m doing on a scene from Pilgrim’s Progress, I am discovering some things that inform my background on reading and the importance of immersing one’s self in a variety of types of literature.
Let this essay be considered an introduction to “On Reading” that I’ll write later this week.
We know that John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. We also know that it is the second-best selling book in the English language. The book is an allegory. What is an allegory?
An allegory is: a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. “Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey”
Bunyan’s book contains literary devices and genres within it of which we may not be familiar. These are are good to know as we read his amazing allegory. What are some other types of literature? Abecedarium, Bestiary, Emblem books were popular at Bunyan’s time and before.
Abecedarium: (plural abecedaria)
A book used to teach the alphabet; alphabet book; primer. An inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order.
In past eras childrens’ abecedaria lessons included Bible lessons and verses. I have an abecedarium (of course I do!) and here is its first page. It is an illuminated alphabet from the court of Emperor Rudolf II.
Rudolf II (1552 – 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria. He was a member of the House of Hapsburg. The illuminated ‘A’ and picture represents a verse from Revelation 1:8,
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
The explanation of the picture from the abecedarium is that: “the first written symbol pays homage to God, the ruler of heaven and earth, the “beginning and the end”. The biblical verse, accompanied by the tetragram of Gods’ name is quoted within a stylized Omega in the middle of the page and in a cartouche at the bottom margin. With this verse, the first letter of the Greek alphabet simultaneously refers to the last one. The blue medallion containing the tetragram of his name occupies the the center of the folio. It connects the constructional drawing of the letter A with its executed version and is surrounded by the Omega, which generates flashes of lightning and thunderheads as symbols of God’s might.”
“In the upper margin, a cherub is surrounded by a laurel wreath, a sign of God’s fame, and flanked by incense burners. This angel praises the Lord along with the cherubim at the right margins. At both left and right, eternal lights burn in praise of God, as so candles entwined by olive branches, which symbolize his peace, Four demonic winged insects (the two antennae on the abdomens of the upper ones indicate that they are Ephemerae, whose life span is a single day) are attracted by the flames.”
A children’s book can be very sophisticated. Another antique book style was a Bestiary.
Bestiary is “a descriptive or anecdotal treatise on various real or mythical kinds of animals, especially a medieval work with a moralizing tone. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God, and that every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. The bestiary, then, is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature.
Another kind of book that was popular when Bunyan was writing Pilgrim’s Progress was the Emblem Book:
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
In part 1 and in part 2 when Christian and Christiana are in the House of the Interpreter, there seems to be a similarity to the scenes Bunyan records there with an Emblem Book. This Wiki entry explains.
“Many of the pictures in the House of the Interpreter seem to be derived from emblem books or to be created in the manner and spirit of the emblem. … Usually, each emblem occupied a page and consisted of an allegorical picture at the top with underneath it a device or motto, a short Latin verse, and a poem explaining the allegory. Bunyan himself wrote an emblem book, A Book for Boys and Girls (1688) …”, cf. Sharrock, p. 375.
Right, Wisdom – from George Wither’s Book of Emblems (London 1635)
So…that is all pretty interesting. We know that the Bible itself contains many different kinds of literary styles. From GotQuestions’ list
historical literature (1 and 2 Kings),
dramatic literature (Job),
legal documents (much of Exodus and Deuteronomy),
song lyrics (The Song of Solomon and Psalms),
poetry (most of Isaiah),
wisdom literature (Proverbs and Ecclesiastes),
apocalyptic literature (Revelation and parts of Daniel),
short story (Ruth),
sermons (as recorded in Acts),
speeches and proclamations (like those of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel),
prayers (many Psalms),
parables (such as those Jesus told),
fables (such as Jotham told), and
epistles (Ephesians and Romans).
I recently read an epistolary novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I read Pilgrims Progress part 1 this summer and I’m reading part 2 now, which is an allegory. I’m reading poetry, a book of short stories, and a non-fiction historical. This past summer I read Moby-Dick, which is a little of every genre, I think!
Reading widely in various genres helps the Christian when s/he reads the Bible. Reading the Bible with its many genres helps the Christian when s/he reads widely. It works both ways. Christians should be readers. Challies explains why. An abecedarium might not be your cup of tea, neither a bestiary or an emblem book, but there are many different kinds of books besides the standard Christian novel or the non-fiction theology book. Try one! I had a hard time at first with Pilgrim’s Progress because I don’t connect well to abstractions like symbolism or allegory, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The skill helps me when I read the Bible. The word pictures in the allegory also stay with me.
Let me know what different genre you tried and how you liked or didn’t like it!
I hope this fine fall week has offered you beautiful glimpses of God’s creative intellect and His wonderful power. It’s finally cooled down here in north Georgia. We always enjoy the march of the seasons. “He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.” (Psalm 104:19, KJV). Wherever we are in the world, reading this blog, we see and understand the times and seasons. We look for the colorful leaves, the pumpkins, the migrating geese. The orderliness and consistency of the seasons since His ordination of them is a comfort. Yet even in Jeremiah 8:7 it is said of the seasons, meaning HIS season, “Yes, the stork in the heaven knows her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD.”
I’ve always been interested in language, and how language, particularly through media, influences the mind. How it can clarify or obfuscate. The Emergent Church’s penchant for insisting on ‘respectful dialogue’ was part of the tactic of obfuscation. It brought muddiness to the clarity of scripture and it is simply a defense mechanism for satan to deflect dogmatic truth. I posted a blog entry a long while ago titled “It’s 2012 and homosexuality is still a sin” as a jab at emergent post-modern culture that says we have to get with the times and dialogue about these points to see whether they are still relevant. I have an answer for you. They are still relevant. End of dialogue.
Phil Johnson has said,
“Let’s just agree to disagree.” Well, no. How about we just argue until one of us actually refutes the other and we come to a common understanding of God’s Word?
As a result of my interest in how language is used or misused, I’ve heard much of what John MacArthur has said or written on the subject. Here is his explanation of the tendency toward “tolerant dialogue” in his essay “The perspicuity of scripture”
“A new movement is now arising in evangelical circles. Apparently, the main object of attack will be the perspicuity of Scripture. Influenced by postmodern notions about language, meaning, subjectivity, and truth, many younger evangelicals are questioning whether the Word of God is clear enough to justify certainty or dogmatism on points of doctrine. Ironically, this new movement to a certain extent ignores all the previous debates. Instead, its proponents are more interested in dialogue and conversation. As a result, they scorn and rebuff propositional truth (which tends to end dialogue rather than cultivate it) as an outmoded vestige of twentieth-century modernism.”
He’s right. Proclamation of an incontrovertible truth tends to shut down conversation. It’s supposed to, because there is no debating it. Strong’s Concordance says the authoritative (binding) word of God, brings eternal accountability to all who hear it.
Do you really believe that scripture is so unclear about what’s a sin? It isn’t.
It is also just as clear on Jesus’ love for us. People will accept that incontrovertible truth, while dismissing the truth of sin. God Sent His Son into the world to die for our sins. Jesus is the best person to ever live, die and live again. He is superlative, beautiful, and perfect. He saves us from our sins. Scripture is clear on that.
This post first appeared on The End Time in June 2012
If the homosexual lobby is to be believed, every other person you bump into is gay. At work, at home, in town, in the city, in church, the more vocal activists in the lobby make it seem like people who self-identify as homosexual or lesbian are a major portion of the population.
They scream about rights, and their civic due, and not being marginalized any more like any other large minority group, such as African Americans. Black people as a major minority rose up in the 1960s to claim their civil rights, the gay lobby says, and homosexual lobby now makes the same claims. Homosexually-oriented people are elected to office, serve as community leaders, even preach from pulpits. There is a homosexual character on most sitcoms now, either as a regular character or as a recurring character. Homosexual references are made on scripted shows and on reality television shows, movies, and books. Christian colleges have gay support clubs now. We are literally saturated with the notion that homosexuality is the norm. Heck, even the animals do it, so it must be normal, right?
Not so fast.
I opened with “If the homosexual lobby is to be believed…” but what are really the statistics on numbers of self-identified gay and lesbian people in America? Can we believe those numbers? I am not talking about a girl who experimented once when she was 12, or the guy who woke up sorry and embarrassed after the drunken orgy of a frat party. I am talking the militant, life-long, “out” homosexuals who choose to live that lifestyle as mirror to heterosexuality.
No. We can’t believe the numbers. They’re a crock.
“Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are”
“One in ten. It’s the name of the group that puts on the Reel Affirmations gay and lesbian film festival in Washington, D.C., each year. It’s the percent popularized by the Kinsey Report as the size of the gay male population. And it’s among the most common figures pointed to in popular culture as an estimate of how many people are gay or lesbian. But what percentage of the population is actually gay or lesbian? With the debate over same-sex marriage again an emerging fault line in American political life, the answer comes as a surprise: A lower number than you might think — and a much, much, much lower one than most Americans believe.”
So, what are the numbers? Well, Americans believe a quarter of the population is gay. The true number is about 4% and is probably probably closer to 2%. A 2011 report by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation estimated that 4 million adults identify as gay or lesbian, representing 1.7% of the population over 18. (source)
That is some very successful perception-altering on their part. So how is it that the homosexual lobby has made it seem like you can’t swing a cat in the Bible Belt without hitting a queen or a dyke? Because of this.
Bunheads.
Bunheads is (was- it didn’t last) a new ABC Family show by the producers of Gilmore Girls. I never saw the tv show Gilmore Girls but every news story I read about Bunheads identifies the show that way so I will too. Bunheads is the nickname for ballerinas, and the show that made its debut last Monday is touted as a new family oriented entertainment.
I saw the pilot and I liked it. I thought the writing was sophisticated and witty, the show was emotional without being sentimental, and I put it on the list for future watching.
So what is my concern with the show and how does it relate to the vastly overestimated homosexual numbers? Here:
At one point toward the end of the pilot episode, which is on ABC Family I remind us all, the mom-in-law character was having a heart to heart talk with her new daughter-in-law. The girl had just married the mom’s son and had moved into their home in a town called Paradise.
The scene took place in a roadhouse toward the end of the show, a show in which constant references had been made for the last 90 minutes to the smallness of this rural seaside town. It is small. There is no movie theatre. It has just about one store. (Giving directions to a newcomer- “Go to Main Street, turn left, and look for the store called Sparkles.”) The teens, when feeling frisky and up to no good, break into the library and, gulp, read. It’s so small that teenagers literally have nothing else to do but read? THAT is how small, out of the way, and retiring this little town is. Even the show synopsis calls it a “sleepy coastal town.”
So back to the scene. The new daughter-in-law asks about the dancers attending the mom-in-law’s ballet class. The teenage girls all had a story, and of one, the mom-in-law said,
“Her dad’s gay. Oh, he thinks it’s a big secret but we all know. Thing is, if he would just come out of the closet he would smile once in a while. And plus, there are a lot of very nice, single gay men in town.”
A town so small has “a lot” of gay men? The perception the homosexual lobby would have us believe, and uses family entertainment to do it, is that literally just about everyone is gay. Bombard a population with that message for thirty years and you get a new generation coming up who thinks everyone is gay. And if there are so many gays, then it must be normal. That is the strategy. Normalization through numbers.
Of course I’m not blaming the entire skewed perception on one television show, but it is representative of the insidious but casual nature that scripted tv and movies: that every closet has a gay person lurking inside it, summoning up the courage to leap “out.” We have been saturated with casual one-off lines like the one in Bunheads casually declaring that there are “a lot” even in this small town. ‘We don’t have a theater but we’ve got our gays!’
You can see the success the homosexual lobby has had in altering the perception of a nation of over 300 million souls. The homosexual lifestyle is an aberration. Some succumb and choose it. Make no mistake, though, it is a choice, not an identity. I understand the fight that homosexual people have in resisting that aberrant behavior. All people attempt to resist sin in some form or fashion. I understand also that some sins are more besetting than others. God will still judge them.
BUT, God in His loving kindness, accepts the repentance of one who seeks to shed that lifestyle and turn to Him. His mercy is greater than any sin, and He listens to prayers beseeching deliverance. Here is a moving three minute clip from a testimony John MacArthur shared of a homosexual’s repentance. (The clip says 7 minutes but the audio goes out after three minutes.) It is quite moving:
If you are involved in a homosexual lifestyle, or any lifestyle that is unacceptable to God, please repent. Ask Him to forgive your sins, and make Him Lord. His wisdom is so vast that he will lead you into a life that is purer and more peaceful than you can ever imagine.
We’ve looked at the sellers of purple. Lydia was one. The manufacturing process of purple dye was lengthy and expensive, making purple dye a luxury only a few could afford. However, everyone needed pots. Rich or poor, woman or man, mansion or hut, every person in the ancient biblical world needed ceramics. Therefore, pottery was ancient Palestine’s biggest industry.
POTTERY The production of pottery was one of man’s great innovations in the later stages of the prehistoric period (Prehistory), and one of the most important landmarks in the long process of transition from the nomadic life of hunters and food-gatherers towards a settled existence. Pottery is made of clay, a type of soil almost universally available, which with the addition of water acquires plasticity, enabling the potter to shape it as required. Once fired, the shape given to it is retained.
Source: Negev, A. (1990). In The Archaeological encyclopedia of the Holy Land (3rd ed.). New York: Prentice Hall Press.
I am fascinated with marine archeology. I remember as a kid watching documentaries about finding and old ship. The excavators always got excited when they found an amphora. Amphorae were ancient Roman or Greek cargo pots that goods were shipped in. They could date the wreck by the design of the amphora. Every single ship carrying anything had ceramics on board as the cargo containers.
Amphorae are of great use to maritime archaeologists, as they often indicate the age of a shipwreck and the geographic origin of the cargo. They are occasionally so well preserved that the original content is still present, providing information on foodstuffs and mercantile systems. (Wikipedia)
Ceramics for common uses such as shipping containers (amphorae) and water, wine and oil jugs were so ubiquitous that-
Amphorae were too cheap and plentiful to return to their origin-point and so, when empty, they were broken up at their destination. At a breakage site in Rome, Testaccio, close to the Tiber, the fragments, later wetted with Calcium hydroxide (Calce viva), remained to create a hill now named Monte Testaccio, 148 ft high. (Wikipedia)
You can picture Job sitting near the pot sherd pile scraping his boils. When Paul was on the ship that was in the terrible storm (Jonah too) the men who threw the cargo overboard were most likely throwing over pots like these.
Amphorae stacking. Suggestion on how amphorae may have been stacked on a galley. (Bodrum Castle (Turkey). A Galley (from Greek γαλέα – galea) is an ancient ship which is entirely propelled by human oarsmen. Source Wikimedia
Smith’s Bible Dictionary says of potters and pottery-
The art of pottery is one of the most common and most ancient of all manufactures. It is abundantly evident, both that the Hebrews used earthenware vessels in the wilderness and that the potter’s trade was afterward carried on in Palestine. They had themselves been concerned in the potter’s trade in Egypt, (Psalms 81:6) and the wall-paintings minutely illustrate the Egyptian process. The clay, when dug, was trodden by men’s feet so as to form a paste, (Isaiah 41:25) Wisd. 15:7; then placed by the potter on the wheel beside which he sat, and shaped by him with his hands. How early the wheel came into use in Palestine is not known, but it seems likely that it was adopted from Egypt. (Isaiah 45:9; Jeremiah 15:3) The vessel was then smoothed and coated with a glaze, and finally burnt in a furnace. There was at Jerusalem a royal establishment of potters, (1 Chronicles 4:23) from whose employment, and from the fragments cast away in the process, the Potter’s Field perhaps received its name. (Isaiah 30:11)
Before 2500BC pottery was handmade. After 1500 or so, a wheel was used.
EPrata photo
Pitchers, water jugs, cups. Perfume jars, juglets, cruets. Wine and oil storage up to 25 quarts. Wide mouth jars stored grain. Sadly, household gods was a thriving pottery industry. Remember Rebekah in Genesis 31, she stole the household gods. These were called teraphim, and they probably looked something like this:
Three Syrian terra cotta idols, 2nd millennium BC, Source
Pottery objects were made for children, too. War horses for boys and and small cooking pots for girls have been found, as well as rattles and baby feeding bottles for infants. Oil lamps for household illumination were made of pottery. Even broken pottery had uses. Larger sherds would be used as scoops and dippers. Others, to carry coals from one fire to another.
Pottery represented one of the major manufacturing industries of the ancient world, and the Israelite potters were what we called “up and coming businessmen.” With the potter’s wheel, they had assembly line methods of manufacture with different men performing different parts of the process. They knew the temperatures various clays with their various impurities would fire at. They had standard sizes which ran in staggered sizes. Pride of manufacture is indicated by potter’s marks.
Pottery industry was organized by families and guilds (1 Chronicles 4:23).The most difficult part for the apprentice was mastering the firing of the kiln and this was probably passed from father to son. Greeks used to pray to the gods before firing the kiln and the medieval potters offered prayers first.
(Source for above information, Palestinian Pottery in Bible Times, J. L. Kelso and J. Palin Thorley, The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1945), pp. 81-93 (13 pages) )
The life of a potter was good, because what he produced is always in demand. His wares were not for the luxe crowd as was the purple seller’s, even the poorest of the poor could afford a thrown small water jug. It cost a penny. It was a physical job (see jpg) but not as physical as a dyer or a tanner, nor as dangerous as a shepherd. The local potter was a middle to upper class businessman.
Click to enlarge. Source “Public Life in Bible Times”, JI Packer
Clay was plentiful in Palestine, the potter never had far to go for gathering raw materials. He couldn’t perform his craft just anywhere, though. His shop was likely at the edge of town so that the smoke from the kilns would not offend residents. It was a safety feature also, as it prevented fires in the crowded town. This is what the LORD says: “Go, buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests, and go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate.” (Jeremiah 19:1-2).
Note the verse in Jeremiah 18:2 where God said for Jeremiah to “go down” to the potter’s house, no other direction was necessary. Pottery was a necessity and everyone would know where the potter’s house was. There would be at least one in every village.
The Psalms have a series of songs called Song of Ascents, this was to be sung on the way up. So when God said for Jeremiah to go down to the Potter’s House, it was likely that the potter was situated outside the city at the bottom of the mount. The raw materials were there, anyway.
The specific area where potters were is noted in Jeremiah 19:1-2,
Ben-hinnom later was transliterated to Gehenna, the waste dump with fires that Jesus likened to the fires of hell. One can imagine this quarter of the city and environs, with kiln fires constantly blowing smoke over the valley, piles of raw material clay, clay covered potters at work, waste mountains like the one mentioned above in Italy that was 148 feet high. source Biblical Archeology
In one of the Bible’s most beautiful metaphors, God likened Himself to a Potter and His creations as clay. His work is completely sovereign.
Jeremiah 18:1-6
The Potter and the Clay 18 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
There is a traditional saying about the roots of the word sincere. Not all potters were honest, as happens in every trade, there were a few bad apples floating around.
On the other hand, it also could have as its root two words in the Greek, one word meaning sun, the other meaning to judge, so that it literally in its root meaning has the idea of testing something by sunlight – testing something by sunlight. That, by the way, we don’t know for sure if that’s the root of eilikrins, which is the Greek term, but it is the root of sincere, which is a Latin derivative.
The Latin word is sin cerae, and it literally means “without wax.” Now, let me explain what that means. A potter who was making a jar, or a bowl, or a plate, or a dish of some kind, would turn it on his wheel; and then when it was completed, he would take it and fire it, bake it, as you know. Frequently, because of some impurity in the clay, or some error in judgment in terms of the temperature, or whatever, it would come up with a crack. A cracked jar, or pot, or bowl, or dish, would be useless.
But because of the money invested in it, the unscrupulous potters would try to cover up the crack, and they would take a hard wax, and they would fill the crack with wax. And then they would cover it over with whatever they were using to coat or to paint the pot or the bowl. And so when any wise person went into the marketplace to buy a piece of pottery, they would typically hold the pottery up to the sunlight and rotate it to see if it was without wax, because the sunlight could shine through the crack and reveal the wax – which, of course, the first time anything heated was put in it, would melt, and it would be discovered as useless.
A life, then, needs to be held up to the sunlight to determine whether it’s got any flaws that are being falsely covered over by the wax of hypocrisy. That’s the idea. That may well be the root of the word “sincere.” That certainly is behind the Latin concept, sine cera, which means without wax.
I ‘sincerely’ hope you’ve enjoyed this peek at the potter. There is actually much more to be enjoyed about the long history of pottery, which began in or near Egypt perhaps as early as 5000 BC. There are different ages of the evolution of pottery, Palestinian trends in pottery, the painting and decoration of ceramics. A potter was a skilled artisan, busy from dawn to nightfall, creating useful and decorative items for the many people and tribes in his area. He was one of many workers depicted in our Bible, such as the Seller of Purple, Tanner, and Shepherd.
If you have a suggestion for ‘a day in the life of’, please let me know in the comments!
The plaudits and accolades and gushes of past participants of the many different Cursillo programs are readily available online. Many people have gone through a Cursillo Weekend (in their terminology, “made Cursillo”) and have loved it. The aim of the program is to make known to people the love of God and to revive them for service to others as a lifetime priority. This is a good thing.
However, Cursillo’s theological grounding is from the Catholic religious system, its methods use emotional and psychological manipulation (to purposely “break you down”), it is theology-lite, and as a parachurch ministry it tends to separate people from their own church, or undermine it, requiring constant reunion meetings and written “service sheets” to track your Cursillo efforts.
I have collected first person reviews of the Cursillo program either from the internet or directly from friends and acquaintances who have a different story to tell than the glowing reports one usually reads.
It must be said that though you may never have heard of this movement, it is huge and growing. The Cursillo movement takes place through one-on-one personal invitations, and much of the program is held in a private retreat, with its activities kept secret.
As a result, a lot of people have never heard of Cursillo programs (Walk to Emmaus, Great Banquet, Tres Dias, and so on). I only heard about Great Banquet because a reader asked me to research it, since she had been invited and knew very little about the weekend. Great Banquets are thriving in the American midwest where the founder is from, especially Indiana and Illinois.
Therefore, I researched the program at her urging. It has taken me three months to gather enough information to write a comprehensive review. Since publishing part 1 & part 2, many readers have contacted me to tell me they either went through the program and were upset by it, or they know someone who is involved and are saddened by their involvement. Cursillo is bigger than I knew. See photos:
This screen grab shows all the countries Cursillo programs are in
From Wikipedia: Today, Cursillo is a worldwide movement with centers in nearly all South and Central American countries, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand Aotearoa, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and in several African countries. The movement is recognized by the Holy See as member of the International Catholic Organizations of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in Rome.
This screen grab is a listing of all the different titles of the various Cursillo programs. Some are denomination-specific, others are non-denom
Two authors that I know of have written an objective review of the movement. One is Marcene Marcoux, who wrote her thesis on it, “Cursillo, Anatomy of a Movement: The Experience of Spiritual Renewal” (1982). Another is Brian V. Janssen whose 2009 book is called “Cursillo: Little Courses in Catharsis”. Both of these are available at Amazon and elsewhere.
Marcoux writes,
Clearly, Thursday is structured to effect a disorientation of the candidates, that is, to plunge them into a shocking state of self-awakening. The individuals must handle this shock in isolation since they are prohibited from speaking with other candidates and must maintain silence. They are segregated from others and left without any supportive group to share their frustrations and anxieties. Candidates listen to words that may upset them and that are designed to do exactly this. The images and examples are purposefully selected to instil aloneness and helplessness…
All of the techniques and methods are hurled, if you will, toward the candidates to disturb their sense of themselves and to instigate a process of transformation. The years of planning and perfecting by the early team in Mallorca, and all that has been learned in the years of expansion, have shaped a powerful methodology that assails the candidates from many directions. Nudged, disturbed, worried, upset, the candidates wrestle with questions planned to affect them: to shock, to startle them…
The cursillo is not a superficial gathering haphazardly established, but a well-structured method with a significant history and regional, national, and international structures continually shaping its process. It is this phenomenon the candidates confront, with all its momentum and the force of its potential impact. …those who approach their religion from a more rational perspective may be taken aback by the emotional level of the cursillo, considering its methods too demonstrative and reminiscent of Protestant revival meetings.
The First Person reviews below support Marcoux’s observation. These reviewers note the lack of Bible use, the canned aspect of the lectures, and the physical disorientation via lack of sleep/solitude/meals/heat/rest room, etc.
FIRST PERSON REVIEW
This commenter was a 73 year old female at the time of her participation. She attended Discipleship Walk, non-denominational Cursillo. She also found a leader’s manual at a library and read it. She related,
She could tell something was wrong the first night, the next morning for sure something was wrong.
You sit at the same table each time. Monitors at each table checking you out even in your room.
She was not allowed to turn the heat on in her room.
She was not allowed a nap. Only 5 minutes of free time.
The leaders manual stressed keeping you off balance. It also stressed choosing people under 55 (this candidate was 73).
The manual calls Cursillo a method. If you break the method at any point, there will not be a conversion at the end of the movement (the weekend). Cursillo is a movement.
The lectures are canned.
She was able to get a thesis from Northwestern University’s library, “An Anatomy of a Movement”, by Professor Marcene Marcoux.
Leaders manual dated 1962. A librarian found the manual for her. A footnote she recalls “long boring lectures”.
She doesn’t recall ever hearing the Bible quoted. They tell you to bring your Bible, but you just leave it opened on the table.
The monitors are over-bearing.
No time for personal things.
Skimpy meals.
FIRST PERSON REVIEW.
This is a pastor from a Southern Baptist church who went one weekend and his wife went the next. He attended the Methodist Walk to Emmaus.
Little to no scripture used. A lot of sweet stories a lot of singing. Everything is done in secret no explanation to really any reason why everything is done in secret. They take your watch, cell phone and any kind of communication device. You go to gather in groups to different meetings.
It felt like every lesson was kind of like that old book that came out years ago “Chicken Soup for the Soul”.
You know my struggle with my Assurance salvation. I walked away in doubt from the whole entire event. I don’t feel that anything was directly against the Bible. But nothing was directed to me to read my Bible. And in that it’s very dangerous. The entire time was an emotional roller coaster.
The letters from loved ones was touching but I could have done that on my own.
I would not recommend anyone to go. I know you know this but if it’s not grounded in the word of God, I say stay away. It was very edifying for me in my flesh. That is extremely dangerous.
FIRST PERSON (female, Tres Dias)
Yes, whatever you can to deter people from being involved in this. I attended this is 2007, so I don’t remember everything. But there are certain things that stick out to me. I imagine you will be exploring the theological inaccuracies taught there, which is important but I often reflect on the cult-like principles of it. I believe I was a false convert at the time and yet by God’s grace and a whole bunch of particular circumstances I had already started questioning some of the things taught in the church and their behaviors were alarming.
I’m not sure if you are aware that at these retreats they take your watch so you don’t ever know what time of day it is. They tell you when to get up, go to bed and eat. You are not allowed to talk between moving from one place to another. They choose your roommate for your stay and they choose which table you sit at and who sits with you. No one is told there is a spy at the table who has been to a retreat before, and they are there to take back to the organizers all you say. They reveal this the last day.
This is deception, lying and spying is what communists do to Christians, it should not be a behavior found among each other. I felt very angry about this without understanding what I was angry about.
There is also a session where you are led into a room and seated in a circle on the floor and one fellow goes around the room just looking you in the eye and you are not allowed to look away. No one is allowed to speak. Does all this not sound cultish? I mean where is this found in the Bible? It makes me very upset because I know lots of people still running this that I attended the church with who are nice people, just deceived, like I was.
FIRST PERSON REVIEW.
This person is a female, Methodist, with a MA in Christian Education from Southwestern Seminary. She attended a Walk to Emmaus and wrote about her experience on her blog, which can be found here.
My first impression was that I was being initiated into some weird “Christian” cult (and, I’m not sure that my impression changed until the very end on Saturday). I believe that as Christians we are called to represent Christ with truth and excellence, and I did not see that in the weekend. Don’t get me wrong, the end result was good, but for the most part it was frustrating, annoying, weird, and made me angry. It took me almost the entire Walk to get over all of the things that kept me from spending time with my Father, and it shouldn’t have been that way.
I was turned off at many points during the weekend, and if I hadn’t come into this weekend rooted deeply in my faith and understanding of Christ, I probably would have run screaming. Following a script. Life doesn’t follow a script. Jesus didn’t follow a script. And the original walk to Emmaus with the men and Jesus definitely didn’t follow a script.
Maybe it’s so everyone can have the same experience, but come on, no one ever has the same experience. I felt like I was being read to the entire weekend, and it seemed to suck so much life out of the stories and experiences shared. Christ came to bring us LIFE not a script.
This next review is from a web page called Questioning Cursillo, which I recommend. This excerpt below is from a male participant, who at the time was/is a pastor of a Baptist church and a professor at a Seminary. I recommend you go to the page and read the reviews in their entirety.
FIRST PERSON REVIEW (Male Baptist pastor/professor.)
Cursillo-based retreats are at best a social experiment in conformity and a distraction from the Christian life, and at worst, for some sensitive individuals, a true potential trauma. They are not a cult in the sense that they do not extract money from participants, seek to control them long-term, or commit serious abuses. But they do use techniques that are psychologically manipulative—techniques quite similar to cult techniques—to produce a supposed experience of God. If God is real, God has no need of such things; they only serve to give faith a bad name as mindless conformity.
1. Cursillo is heavily influenced by Catholic theology. No one denies that the Cursillo movement began as an effort at spiritual renewal within the Catholic Church in Spain. The weekend I attended was sponsored by the _______ Cursillo Council, a Protestant organization. However, on the first evening we recited Catholic liturgy underneath a Crucifix. It was the first time in my life I had ever heard of Veronica. [A Catholic saint].
2. Cursillo is influenced by a charismatic approach to sanctification. Many people involved in the Cursillo movement seem to think that three days at a Cursillo retreat means someone is instantly mature and ready for service. The whole concept is similar to the Charismatic belief in a “second blessing” whereby one becomes instantly sanctified and free from sin.
This is my primary objection to Cursillo. Maturity does not come in three days and it is misleading to teach someone that it does. Instead, maturity comes from a consistent, daily walk with Christ. There are no short-cuts to Christian growth. I do not recommend the Cursillo movement for anyone who is serious about spiritual growth. Doctrinally, the concept has a flawed view of sanctification. Practically, it creates a super-spiritual attitude that is divisive to the local church.
_____________________________________
Conclusion
My own bias is that I’m suspicious of para-church organizations. Sometimes they are quite helpful. But many times they compete with the local church.
Cursillo is at root a Catholic movement in its theology. It is also an ecumenical movement. It deliberately downplays theology in pursuit of unity based on emotion. For example, here is part of a FAQ page from a Walk to Emmaus saying to overlook theology in pursuit of what I personally would consider a false unity. –
Emmaus is for fostering unity in Christ, not for theological debate and arguments about denominations. Emmaus tries to foster appreciation and openness to the different faith-perspectives of the participants. Bring a spirit of Christian tolerance and charity toward others, including members of other denominations. If you cannot affirm your unity with other kinds of Christians, if you tend to define Christianity narrowly and legalistically or are intolerant of those who see things differently, then Emmaus is probably not for you.
One of the things that a different Walk to Emmaus page said, was that doctrine and social issues divide. One issue they say to set aside, that is too divisive, is salvation. Let that sink in.
The issues of doctrine & social issues, can, and have been, divisive within the church. Doctrinal issues have included the method of baptism, gifts of the Spirit, salvation, and eschatology to mention a few. Social issues have included marginalized persons who are homeless or imprisoned, pro-life vs. pro-choice, abortion, caring for the aged, ethnic inclusiveness or exclusiveness, and gender affinity. Clearly, the issue of whether or not the practice of homosexuality is compatible with Christian lifestyle is at controversy in the church today. … In Emmaus, such social issues are transcended and set aside as we affirm one another in our fundamental beliefs …
[underline mine] Source (pdf). And while homosexuality and gender affinity are social issues, they are also issues that directly contradict Imago Dei and everything we read in Genesis 1 and 2. Therefore, I consider them theological, foundational issues.
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I contacted the United States founder of the Great Banquet, Jack Pitzer. I had read on the Great Banquet pages that the GB is “Governed by an ecumenical board of directors.” That phrase is repeated on almost all FAQ Great Banquet pages. Curious that though the Board was mentioned frequently, the names or denominations of the Directors were not. I wanted to know which denominations they were from, if there were any women on the board, and if any of those women were pastors or in control of spiritual direction or curriculum. So I contacted Mr Pitzer to ask. I wrote,
Hello,
I would be interested in knowing who is on the Board of Directors of The Great Banquet and what faith background they come from?
Thank you so much!
Elizabeth
Mr Pitzer replied the next day. This was his reply in total:
Who is Elizabeth Prata?
It was not the reply I was expecting.
I sent back an answer. At the time I was sincerely just interested in finding out a bit more about the GB on behalf of my friend. Little did I know that secrecy and stonewalling would spin me out on a three-month odyssey of discovery about Cursillo, which in turn would prompt me to write these essays about the movement. My emailed reply:
I’m a Christian woman in Georgia whose friend was invited to The Great Banquet and I’m just interested in knowing more about it. On the websites I read they said that there is an ecumenical National Board. Several of the sites encouraged interested parties to contact the people in charge FMI. Would you be so kind as to share who is on the Board and which faith backgrounds they come from? Thanks!
Though Mr Pitzer is no doubt a busy man, I did appreciate that he replied.
I wrote the Great Banquet back in 1990. It is a “short course” in Christianity. It is a “cursillo-model” experience. The Board is made up of Presbyterians, Baptist, and Independent Christian. If you want to know about me – get on line and look up Lampstandpc.org. I am the Head Pastor and you can even listen or watch sermons or Bible studies I have done. Jack Pitzer
I did contact other regional Great Banquet leaders to find out more specific information for my friend who is in the Midwest, (where GB is most popular) asking about who comprises the “ecumenical Board”. One woman who was very kind to answer my questions, said at one point, “We don’t talk about the name of our church or what denomination we are. We are all Christians who believe that Christ Jesus is our Lord and Savior.”
And that is a problem. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Catholics all believe that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Methodists believe that too but rebel against their Lord and Savior by ordaining women. ‘Jesus as Lord’ is not the only benchmark to determine if one should participate in a a 72 hour course in Christianity. For the discerning woman, prior to committing to 72 hours of lectures and a cathartic intimate community experience, I’d want to know who is behind the curriculum and who is guiding the movement’s direction.
For example, The Master’s Seminary’s Institute for Church Leadership (ICL) is organized specifically to train up lay leaders, just as Cursillo is. I can take a similar quantity of credit hours at ICL. If I am deciding whether to invest 72 hours of time at Cursillo (which IS Spanish for “short course”) or take a short course for 60-70 hours at The Master’s Seminary Institute for Church Leadership, I need to make an assessment on which is best to devote my time and/or money. Cursillo’s curriculum and Board of Directors should not be secret.
I looked at other para-church organizations and all of them with the exception of Great Banquet, published the names, photos, and bios of who is on their National Boards. It’s not an unreasonable request to ask of a Christian organization whose forefathers and head of the church were always transparent. (John 18:20; Mt 26:55; John 7:26). Can you imagine Paul being cagey about the names and spiritual biographies of the 7 chosen deacons? (Acts 6:1-6). “Uh, they’re just men from around. Why do you want to know? Who are you, anyway?”
I did get the sense that the people involved in these Cursillos are sincere about helping people become more service-oriented and grow closer to Christ. In my opinion, though, the emotionalism and manipulation is not necessary in a Christian movement.
I leave you with this,
If a “method” can be so readily applied across the world’s different cultures and in so many different denominations, with strikingly similar results, even to the moment, is it of the Spirit? Is the Holy Spirit cookie cutter? Does the Holy Spirit need man’s methods to grow saints in discipleship and service? If one’s service is based on emotionalism and catharsis, what happens when the mood dissipates?
Women should base their service on knowing who Christ is from the Bible. Our emotions we feel about Him and serving others stem from our mind, that is, knowing who He is from His word. He is the rock that never dissipates.
The Cursillo method is used by:
ACTS,
Encounter,
Antioch,
Awakening (college students),
Cum Christo,
DeColores (adult ecumenical),
The Great Banquet,
Happening,
The Journey (United Church of Christ),
Kairos Prison Ministry,
Kairos (for older teenagers),
Emmaus in Connecticut (for high school age teens),
Gennesaret (for those living with a serious illness),
Koinonia,
Lamplighter Ministries,
Light of Love,
LOGOS (Love Of God, Others, and Self) (Lutheran teen),
Teens Encounter Christ (teen ecumenical),
Residents Encounter Christ (REC) (a jail/prison ministry),
Tres Dias,
Unidos en Cristo,
Via de Cristo (Lutheran Adult),
Chrysalis Flight (Methodist Youth),
Walk to Emmaus (Methodist Adult),
The Walk with Christ (interdenominational),
Anglican 4th Day (Anglican Adult),
The Way of Christ (Canadian Lutheran adult),
Tres Arroyos (Charismatic Episcopal Church)
Journey to Damascus (Catholic hosted Ecumenical with weekly reunion groups for alumni) in The Corpus Christi, Houston, and Austin, TX areas. Source-Wikipedia
the-end-time.org 