titus

Discernment: Women on the ‘Speaking circuit’- example, Jackie Hill Perry

Posted on January 16, 2024January 17, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Jackie Hill Perry Partnering with Bill Johnson at Bethel Music School

Woman are biblically urged to be at home, tend to their home, abide in their home, and perform duties oriented to the home. Are you getting the idea? The Proverbs 31 woman did all she did FOR the home, which is biblically her sphere.

1 Timothy 5:14, Titus 2:5, Proverbs 14:1 are just a few of the verses that outline a woman’s sphere.

That’s not to say that the husband and the wife may make other decisions based on certain circumstances. That’s not to say that at certain times it may require a woman to be away from the home for work or other reasons. I am not setting a mandate.

The Bible however, does make some clear statements that a wife’s primary orientation circulates around the home- especially when she has children. It should be her priority. This isn’t a popular statement these days.

In 2016 at the height of popularity for Joanna Gaines of Magnolia Enterprises, I wrote that she was a hypocrite and a liar. Joanna constantly claimed in interviews and on her TV program “Fixer Upper” that she was a mom first and her children were her priority. I showed with facts that this was not true. Her orientation was for herself according to her own “testimony”, her enterprises, her books, her speaking, her TV program, her bakery, her furniture store, her design products, her book tour, and so on. I received a LOT of heat for saying this. But I mean, you could even SEE it on the TV show. Facts are facts.

Don’t only listen to what they say. Watch what they do. Both must match up.

Jackie Hill Perry at the Activate 2019 conference with other speakers

I took heat for saying that Beth Moore was also a hypocrite and a liar for the same reason- not there for her kids. Beth’s public speaking engagements, IRS tax return statements of working 50 hours a week as President of her corporation, her own admissions in her blog writing of travels for writing, book tours, and television taping added up to a busy career women. Her lifestyle contradicted her claim that she was at home for her kids. Eventually, a few years later when her two daughters were grown they admitted in an interview that mom was gone a lot, dad picked up the slack, and they “ate a lot of takeout.” The interviewer also said of Moore, “Her days are tightly scheduled and obsessively focused on writing. She spends hours alone in an office…”

Propel Activate women’s conference 2019 tagline. We are not called to lead, nor step out

She is boisterous and rebellious, Her feet do not dwell at home; (Proverbs 7:11)

Speaking of hypocrites, when Diana Stone was writing for She Reads Truth, we read in Diana Stone’s bio that, “You can find her in the mornings with a cup of coffee and her Bible flung open, preparing for the day ahead.” And “With a sweet daughter in tow, Diana clings to God’s Word daily.” It turns out that Mrs Stone relaxes with the Bible “flung open” … after she drops her daughter to daycare. At the time of that writing, in 2014, the couple had employed a part time nanny to care for their daughter in their home so Mrs Stone could work as a freelance writer. After bumping along with several nannies, they put their child in daycare so Mrs Stone could continue to write at home. So yes, she was at home…while a day care worker took care of her kid.

Don’t only listen to what they say. Watch what they do. It must match up.

Mr Jerry Shirer “does his share of housework and child care so that Priscilla can study and write. He travels with his wife everywhere. Whenever possible, they take their sons along on her speaking trips, but they often deposit the boys with Jerry’s mother.” Quote

It is impossible for a woman to claim undivided attention for the children at home AND have an outside the house career, especially when it’s evident by reading their blogs, seeing their speaking schedules, and just having common sense to see their lifestyle.

When a woman has a full-time “ministry,” AKA career, it means the children will suffer a lack of attention from the mom. Which brings us to another career woman, Jackie Hill Perry. One of the main indicators of whether a woman is genuinely converted and submitted to the word of God is seeing her home life. Where is her attention? If she is a mother, do her children come first? Did she submit to the word of God as per her role and let go other entanglements? Or is she using the word “ministry” as a synonym for career and living a lifestyle at odds with the word of God?

In Jackie’s case, she has four children under the age of 10. To the best of my research, her kids are currently 9, 6, 3, and 2. Unlike Joanna, Beth, and Diana, Priscilla; Jackie hasn’t to my knowledge claimed to be an at-home mom. She is proud of her kids and writes of them often, but doesn’t try to maintain a fiction of being a SAHM.

At Jackie’s website her speaking engagements for 2023 were listed. It looked like a busy year of travel away from her children for this mom of four.

2023:
March 10-11. New Orleans, LA.
March 17-18. Atlanta (Decatur), GA.
April 14-15. Kansas City, MO.
April 21-22. Philadelphia, PA.
August 18-19. Greensboro, NC.
September 8-9. Grand Rapids (Wyoming), MI.
September 22-23. Dallas, TX.
September 29-30. Sacramento, CA
October 27-28. Knoxville TN

Jackie’s speaking engagements in 2024, many of which require travel, are below. The list is INCOMPLETE, these are just the ones I could find individually searching. JHP’s speaking event page on her website isn’t updated for 2024 yet.

January 10: podcast interview
February 23-24: Philadelphia PA
February 23: Canada (online)
March 1-2: Ft Worth TX
April 12-13: Bluefield W.VA
July 10-19: Bethel, Redding CA (It’s a 10-day event, I do not know which day or all of the days JHP is appearing there).

I wrote yesterday about JHP’s trajectory away from orthodoxy and that in many people’s estimation (mine included) partnering with heretic Bill Johnson AT Bethel to teach at their music school crossed the line.

Jackie Hill Perry claims to hear directly from God, basks with heretics, refuses wise counsel, rejects correction, and calls setting doctrinal boundaries ‘tribalism.’ But add to the cadre of items to be reviewed when assessing an influencer or teacher, is her home life.

I think it is QUITE telling when a mom of children gallivants all around the country for speaking engagements, leaving the care of her children to someone else (OR dragging them with her like Shirer did) in order to curate her own career. Oh, they call it “ministry”, they call it “using their God-given gifts”, but it’s a career. When you have kids, according to God, your ministry IS the kids. A woman’s priority according to the word of God, should be at home with them, raising them, keeping the home.

If a wife/mom won’t submit to the priority of God in this instance, what else of God does she rebel against?

Jackie Hill Perry is false. Avoid her.

theology

Can women teach ‘academic theology’ to other women? – A response by Nick Campbell

Posted on June 21, 2023June 21, 2023 by elizabethprata

Guest Post by Nick Campbell
Republished with Permission
Nick Campbell: Christ is the Cure. @CITC_org
Webpage: https://christisthecure.org/

The original thread can be found on Twitter here-

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1671155471150125059.html

https://twitter.com/CITC_org/status/1671155471150125059

Quick take: the answer to the title’s question and conclusion is YES.

Ladies, this is an important concept to understand rightly. If a woman believes she may only teach a certain, limiting set of verses to other ladies, she is limiting herself from knowing Jesus fully (even if she learns about Him from her pastor or her husband). Further, we are charged with making disciples, not homemakers. We are charged with proclaiming the whole counsel of God to one and all, including other women. Limiting one’s self randomly to Titus 2, or Proverbs 31 or Genesis 2:18 is nonsensical.

The Bible says of itself, “All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Limiting your sharing of His word with other women to just one or two verses is a rejection of God’s proclamation of the usefulness of His own words.

As RC Sproul used to say “Everyone’s a theologian.” It’s incumbent on us when we proclaim, disciple, or individually learn, that we are absorbing the whole counsel of God and doing so rightly. Here’s Nick-

BY NICK CAMPBELL- The Great Commission is for all Christians and includes the command to “make disciples,” and “teaching them” all that Jesus commanded.

Aside from explicitly commanding “teaching,” discipleship presupposes teaching from scripture, what it means to be a Christian, Christian truths/doctrine, and what follows: theology.

Most in the latest fad of women can’t teach “academic theology” [a debated category of theology, anachronistically injected into scripture for eisegesis], concede that…

1) Women are included in the Great Commission and 2) Women can share the Gospel.

Theologians have agreed that sharing the Gospel is only the beginning of discipleship, discipleship cannot be reduced to one’s conversion, but it is being taught the faith.

The faith in scripture is doctrine and the ethics that flow from said doctrine.

In either case: the Gospel is a theological message comprised of scriptural truths, and the impartation of the Gospel often involves teaching said truths (doctrine).

To say otherwise is to reduce oneself to something tantamount to “no creed but Christ.”

Women are included in the command to make disciples, and I have yet to see a Christian limit the great commission to men only.
Nick Campbell, ‘Christ is the Cure’ @CITC_org

Women are included in the command to make disciples, and I have yet to see a Christian limit the great commission to men only.

But if women are not to exercise authority over men (particularly in overseer roles, to which I agree), who is left for them to fulfill this command with? Irony abounds in the movement mentioned above.

They posit: what can a woman offer a woman that a man cannot? They state there is no good reason for women <fill in the blank.>

Yet, they are the ones most emphatic that women and men are distinct sometimes to extremes.

Yet, if women and men are distinct in the way posited, then the logical benefit of a woman disciplining or teaching another woman is obvious.
Some of this comes out in other teachings by these proponents, where women are told to have women friends because a woman cannot offer the same friendship and connection as a man. It’s logically incoherent.

What is more perplexing is that the movement utilizes the proof text of Titus 2 wherein women are told to “teach” women and that teaching within the full context, as all Christian ethics are, is rooted, grounded, and presupposes Christian truths.

When pressed on whether or not one can teach Christian ethics apart from Christian truth (i.e., baseless behavior modification), they will say no, but say that these women are teaching “biblical womanhood,” not scripture/doctrine/academic theology.

Of course, aside from this category being imposed onto the text to create arbitrary parameters, “biblical” womanhood presupposes biblical instruction on what it means to be a “woman.”

Further, consider the following:
-Women are to “teach” women to “submit to their husbands.”
-A woman attempts to do so, and the learner asks, “Why?”
-How can the “teacher” proceed without appealing to scripture, creation, headship, anthropology, etc.?

The only way for the position to be defensible is for individuals to hold to parameters not found in scripture, “they can teach devotional theology, not academic theology.” [the former is not a formal or widely accepted category, the latter a debated and less utilized category even by most pastors].

While theological categories are helpful, we cannot interject them into the text for our theological propositions.

Further, while theological categories are helpful, we cannot just disregard the categories established in numerous theological textbooks. On the most basic level, women are teaching (in Titus 2) “practical theology,” which is built upon other categories of theology.

Still, the question is: are women called (or permitted) to impart (I.e., teach) scriptural, doctrinal, ethics rooted in theology to other individuals in any capacity in scripture?

This leads to the following:
The most difficult burden for these adherents is producing any scripture that bars women from teaching in any capacity other than in ecclesiastical offices held by men.

She cannot exercise authority “over a man,” are women included in this or are they distinct?

However, if one is going to make a standard (a law/commandment/restriction/holiness code: as they imply women who go beyond “Titus 2” are sinning), they need to have clear scriptural testimony…

To not have such is quite literally to be a Pharisee in adding to the scriptures a tradition to bind the conscience. To do this is to fly directly in the face of the Reformation and what freed men and women from the shackles of extra-biblical commandments.

Lastly, the typical rhetoric of inappropriate settings, “small groups, coffee shops, etc,” is quite bizarre, and quite ironically, women likely discussed scripture and Jesus Christ with other women while in the “workforce” of the 1st century.

Surely the local community centers (synagogues) were places of typical discourse as well! A random limitation on the setting for these commandments, is simply ridiculous.”

A good and clear disclaimer about this thread is that this is not advocating for the overcorrection wherein the great commission qualifies women for the office of pastor/overseer/elder. As I mentioned, I’m in agreement with the traditional understanding of ecclesiastical offices. —end Nick Campbell, Christ is the Cure essay—

theology

Younger women, you’ll be older someday…

Posted on July 21, 2022July 21, 2022 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

In Titus 2:3-5, we read about the Lord’s exhortation for different believers in various demographics. Older men, older women, younger men, younger women, and slaves (today: employees). We can interpret that as a gift of a ministry to the older woman. It’s familiar. Let me post it:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

But what if you’re not older yet? What do you do? You train for it. Younger women, if God grants a long life, you’ll be older someday, too. Get ready to be the older teaching the younger.

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theology

Who was Titus? A Character Study

Posted on March 20, 2021March 20, 2021 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I often refer to the Book of Titus when discussing what behavioral standards the Lord has in mind for us ladies. Titus has some go-to verses. Who was this man? Paul’s letter to Titus is a great book of the Bible, but Titus is mentioned many times elsewhere, too. Let’s look at who Titus was.

There are 12 mentions of him in the New Testament; 8 of those are in 2 Corinthians. There are 2 mentions in Galatians, 1 in Second Timothy, he is mentioned by name in Titus 1:4 and of course the entire book of Titus is a letter to this valued companion of Paul.

Paul calls Titus earnest, a fellow worker, his partner, a comfort, a brother. The name Titus means honorable, which Titus seemed to have lived up to. Titus accompanied Paul on his mission trips, and Titus was who Paul sought when Paul was released from prison. Titus was a Gentile (Galatians 2:3) likely having been converted by Paul when Paul was on his first missionary trip. In AD 63, Paul wrote the letter to Titus from Nicopolis, after Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment. That is the Book of Titus we know today.

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