The church I go to at home in Toronto was open today for Sunday Service (9am for the English Service, 10:30am for the Chinese Service) but everybody was late, and the start of the worship service was delayed for about 15 minutes. Many who lived more than twenty minutes away, especially those who live in the suburbs like Markham, were either very late in arriving or never even bothered to come to church because of the snow. Numerous churches in the city have called it a Snow Day and canceled their Sunday activities. Today is a bad day to be driving anywhere, but the issue lies not so much on there being snow. We Torontonians are used to bad weather and traffic congestion. The problem is that the large majority of church attendees and members do not live near their church. Thus, I was moved to write this post after reading an article on this issue by Ryan Townsend (a fellow M.Div student at Southern Seminary) on the 9Marks blog — it appears to be a modern issue that many churches face today.

The Commuter Church

I may only speak for Chinese churches in the Greater Toronto Area, and I can only comment on what I have observed in my local church setting. But my local church in Toronto is a commuter church. Every Sunday morning there are numerous Acuras, BMWs, Mercedes Benz-s and a Porsche or two that make the 20 minute plus commute from their luxurious homes in the suburbs in York or Durham Region to church in the north-eastern corner of Toronto. Undoubtedly, questions arise as to why the large majority of the congregation lives so far away from their local church, and why they do not live nearer to where they fellowship and worship every week.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
–Luke 14:26-27

The truth is, many who are long-time members of my local church have chosen to move out of the city and out of the local church community. Well, if we’re to be really honest, they actually may not have ever lived near the local church. Over the years, rising housing prices and land taxes have driven many out of the city to find larger and newer homes for cheaper prices in the suburbs of Toronto. Few housing options in suburban Toronto itself (Scarborough, North York) provide the luxury and space they desire, and so they flee, and over time, they flee further and further away from their local church. And since they have made so many friends at this church over the years they have been here, they stay.

The Heart of the Problem

I never wanted to write anything substantive on this issue of one’s proximity to their local church, but this issue has moved into my radar because at the heart of the problem is a Gospel issue; it is a matter of values. This issue can be very touchy, where somebody reading this may take it personally and be insensitive to the crux; I have no intention of attacking anybody personally for where they live (for there may be extenuating circumstances for where one resides, i.e. being nearer to their job). However, I do want to hit the pinata straight on its head and confront the over-arching Gospel issue.

I do not see the Gospel and its related ministries as being the foremost purpose behind our decision-making and priorities for housing. I see couples, new and old, moving further and further away from the local church. I do not see missions to the local church community to be any priority at all. I see people moving to bigger, cheaper houses in far away suburbs in order to sustain their yuppie lifestyle. When I consider new married couples of my generation and I see all of them moving out to nowhere-near our church, I cannot help but wonder why? I doubt the priority they have placed in the Gospel for their decision of where to live; I become more and more convinced that they choose to live out there for the sake of their lifestyle. It does not seem that the Gospel and the Great Commission is something the church as a whole values any longer; it seems that materialism and comfort is something we value above and beyond anything our faith demands.

Benefits, Benefits, Benefits

There are obviously many practical benefits for living near your local church. As Townsend has listed: it saves time and gas money from commuting, makes the process of getting to and from church easier, facilitates ministry and service in the community, creates a more tangible corporate witness in the community, and makes the Lord’s Day more restful. Much more can be said about the serendipitous benefits of living near your church. But the fact of the matter is, given the option of living near one’s workplace or one’s church, inevitably the workplace wins out — for that is where you would commute 5 days out of 7. Logically speaking, it would be more practical and feasible on the wallet to live near your job and have a shorter commute to work. Be that as it may, people who live in the Greater Toronto Area or any large city for that matter, inevitably are forced to commute through traffic congestion every weekday because that is just the way urbanism has affected industry and employment. Therefore, living as close to work would be the logical decision to make.

However, if we are truly disciples of Jesus and if we truly confess Him to be our Lord, then we would give up our material and financial luxuries for the sake of the Gospel — would we not?! For the Gospel itself is illogical, and the way of the Kingdom is foolish to those who do not believe. For what good is salt if it loses its saltiness? And what good is light if you hide it in your house and hide it in your car while you commute? The question we must ask ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ is rightly thus: “Where is a biblically healthy church that I can plant myself and my family, for the sake of our own discipleship and ministry?” After we have answered this question honestly for ourselves, then and only then are we able to obediently follow Christ in our subsequently important choices of work and play.

True Disciples Know Better

For we are not naive and ignorant baby Christians who do not know of the necessity of living near the church. Our own Pastor and a Guest Speaker has preached on the need to move into the church community, and yet many still reject the pleading of our earthly and Heavenly Shepherd. Unfortunately, hypocrisy inevitably is seen where our own Pastor and all our Elders live nowhere near the church. I know that we believers all fall short of His glory on numerous occasions, myself included. It is just very sad and unfortunate that this consequence of the fall has become the standardized norm — a bad habit which the Good News of the Christ’s Cross has given us the power to overcome. The church leaders — the Pastors, Elders and Deacons — must be an example themselves for the rest of the church to follow; otherwise there would be no substance or weight when they exhort others to do what they themselves have not done: live near the church.

“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
–Luke 14:33

If we are to be His true disciples, God has said that it would cost us a lot, just as it had cost Him His own Son’s life. God gave us His Son, Jesus the Christ to die in our place, for our sins, that we may be counted righteous in His sight. And as those who have been brought from death to life, are we not compelled to start doing the right thing, and take up our cross? As those who have been ransomed and redeemed from the slavery of sin and idolatry, are we not compelled to give up the treasures of this world and start building His kingdom here on earth? And as those who have been saved from the wrath of God and delivered out of darkness and into His marvelous light, are we not compelled to be God’s hands and feet in in our backyard (which also should be our church’s backyard)?

Maybe it’s time to reconsider where we work. Maybe it’s time to reconsider where we live. And maybe it’s time we all considered living near our local church.

Christianity includes an incredible diversity of belief and practice. (The numbers I use here are extremely rough approximations for sake of getting the big picture.) (1) About a billion people—about half of all Christianity—are found in the Catholic Church. (2) About a quarter of a billion people belong to one of the Orthodox or Eastern churches (which includes Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc., and also the Coptics and other groups). (3) Nearly a third of a billion people are associated with some conservative Protestant church or movement, either evangelical Protestant or Pentecostal. (4) Another quarter of a billion people belong to mainline, mostly moderate to liberal, Protestant denominations.

(5) This leaves roughly a quarter of a billion people whose forms of Christianity do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories. Within this none-of-the-above category is a wildly diverse assortment of religious communities. If each major type of Christianity represented in this fifth category were its own species, it would look like the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine or an assemblage of delegates to a parliamentary meeting of the United Federation of Planets (take your pick!). It includes (deep breath) Adventism, British-Israelite groups, Christian Science, the Family, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, Messianic Judaism, Metropolitan Community Churches, New Thought, Oneness Pentecostalism, Rosicrucianism, the Sacred Name movement, Swedenborgianism, the Unification Church, Unitarian Universalism, The Way International, and many, many others.

Read Bowman’s entire article here.

I never planned to write this blog series. I feel like 2 Timothy 3:12 is happening to me and as such, I cannot be silent: “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.“ That is why I must conclude this series with some direct responses to exegetical fallacies employed by the pastor question. The concerns here are for the issues in question; there is no intent to make all this ‘personal’. I really hope y’all could know my brotherly affection and care for this wayward minister and join me in praying for her and those who have heard her speak.

“Even with Scripture’s help I’m not sure anyone can adequately determine the answer to that questions completely — what it means to be woman of God, or what it means to be a man of God. Scripture is clear though on what it means to be in Christ, Scripture is clear on what it means to be a godly human being, Scripture is clear on what it means to be the imago dei, which is the image of God.”

Let me first say that whenever a preacher starts off by throwing out the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture in the beginning of a sermon, there is consequently no reason for listeners to believe anything he, or in this case, she, says. Whenever anybody speaks and then commends others to obey their spoken truth apart from Scripture, therein lies no authority or power whatsoever in their words to transform lives.

We can adequately determine from Scripture what it means to be a woman or man of God. For if Scripture cannot give us sufficient answers to all our questions of faith and practice, then it is powerless for our nations to be saved, people freed or changed. And if that be the case, then it would be completely futile for anybody to open their mouth and supposedly preach a word from an powerless religious book. We might as well shut up, shrink into a ball, and cry like a baby because our faith is based on some obscure, unclear and erroneous book — from which we can derive no hope whatsoever.

Fortunately, the inerrant Scripture is our sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience, and it is the Bible alone which teaches us all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. Just as the Article I of the Baptist Faith & Message reads,

“The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried.”

“While I believe that men and women have distinct differences in how we actually carry out the imago dei, I believe we are called to live for the most part in very similar ways.

Ok, fine, I’ll give you that — I know some supposed evangelicals today like to use Latin vocabulary from the apostate Church of Rome. Is it really necessary and that much cooler to say “imago dei” instead of just “image of God”!? God bless you if you need to use Latin in order to boost your self-esteem or substantiate biblical Greek and Hebrew.

Further, how is it that one can so quickly contradict themselves in one sentence, and then in the next sentence, substantiate these similarities between the functions of the two different gender by providing generic behavioral commands that are for all believers. Let me pause to scratch my head at this confusing argument. *pause* ~scratch scratch~ Scripture does tell us many specifics about how all Christians ought to live, and specifics about how men ought to live, and specifics about how women ought to live. As previously mentioned, we have for example Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 3:18-19; 1 Peter 3:1-7; Titus 2:5; and 1 Timothy 3:4, 12. Add to that, Romans 12:9ff gives us some pretty clear “key things” that true Christians must do, which includes, “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited.”

“Do women have specific roles in the church? I think the answer to that is yes… and no. Yes because we are all called to live according to the gifts that God has given us. And that’s not to say that we all run around claiming random gifts for ourselves. What that means is the gifts that God has affirmed in us we use for the glory of God. So yes, women have specific roles in the church, they have specific roles according the specific gifts God has given them. But no, because not all of us have been given the same gifts, or are called to the same gifts.”

Well, that doesn’t really answer the question does it?! (NO!) Further, an ordained minister of God’s Word should not be asking listeners, “What are the qualities of a godly women? Do women belong in positions of spiritual leadership” and only answering that question with another question “What do you think?” All preachers should have learned in seminary that it is inappropriate to ask What do you think in a sermon, and further, that it is outrageously inappropriate to leave this questioned unanswered with silence.

The problem is that in our fallen world, even Christians have faulty consciences that are marred by original sin, henceforth rendering our ability to interpret Scripture all the more difficult. Those who have been gifted and called must not be unclear in the study of God’s Word to explain what it means, and to make the main point of the Scripture the main point of the sermon. We do a disservice to the sheep under our care if we neglect to appropriately shepherd our sheep, ultimately letting them be possessed by legions of evil and be drowned in the sea of confusion.

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 3-4

Here is the paragraph wherein verse 28 lies:

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 3:23-29

Since a seminarian friend has written a good article explaining the verse’s context, I don’t want to repeat what he’s already said. I will however affirm some important points and add some significant points from my own brief study of Galatians 3:28.

Context

Galatians 3 should be understood as Paul’s response to Galatians 2:11-14. (See G. Walter Hansen’s commentary on Galatians by in The IVP New Testament Commentary Series) In that previous chapter, Apostle Peter is rebuked for dinning with Gentiles in one minute and in another minute he stopped once Jews saw him fellowshipping with the Greeks. The issue there was whether or not it was appropriate for Jews to fellowship with Gentiles, which clearly Peter and the Galatians were confused about. However, the Apostle Paul saw through that specific question to the larger issue at hand, which he contends as the denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is why Paul says that Peter’s “conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel,” as Peter had treated the Gentiles as unwanted/unworthy for fellowship upon the sight of his own Jewish people even now, after the inauguration of the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. On Peter’s part, it was hypocritical for him to behave in such an un-Christian manner and thus badly misrepresenting the Gospel he was ordained to proclaim.

To take Galatians 3:28 out of its original context here is to neuter the power of God for the salvation of all who believe — first for the Jew, then the Gentile — but indeed, all who believe. Paul never intended what he says here to be about “gender roles” or what it means to be a woman of God in ministry; to read an interpretation of gender equality into this text is simply ignorant and bad hermeneutics. I come from a public school and haven’t even taken a course on Hermeneutics yet, and still, this Jew-Gentile-Gospel context could not be any clearer to me.

You are all one

Egalitarians use this verse to support their view of equality between the two genders, imploring that this verse to say that men and women are equal because it says that “all one in Christ Jesus.” For unbelievers who have not been given new eyes to see, and even for self-proclaimed Christians who do not study the text, the context, and the words present, such people will probably come to that incorrect and misinterpreted conclusion.

Certainly, for those who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit and regenerated by Christ thus share in Him — His imputed righteousness. “you are all one” does not mean “you are all equal.” Just because all these groups are one does not mean that they are equal in any, or every sense. The equality that is present — that is, the element that both Jews and Gentiles, slaves and the free, males and females — indeed, that all Christians share in common is Christ Jesus himself! From this passage, what they share in common is Christ and only Christ, nothing more and nothing less; from this passage, we are equal in this one respect and in no other.

As Andreas Köstenberger writes,

“Of course, some insist Paul’s statements in Galatians 3:28 imply a change in human relationships. But whether a change in human relationship is implied in Galatians 3:28 or not, this does not appear to be the point Paul actually intended to make. The interpreter should take care to distinguish between authorial intention and possible implications. Moreover, it seems questionable to focus on the implications of Paul’s statements to the extent that the point Paul actually intended to make all but retreats into the background.”

(“Gender Passages in the NT: Hermeneutical Fallacies Critiqued,” Westminster Theological Journal 56 (1994), 277. As quoted in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Woman. Wheaton, IL: 2002, 106. Emphasis mine.)

Subsequently, we should note the universality of this shared element of Jesus Christ that is evident in this passage and not just the oft-pulled verse 28: verse 26 “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith”, and verse 27 “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”. That is why Paul exhorts that there is unity between all who are in Christ: despite our differences, and in spite of being so diverse in who we are, we share a unity in Jesus Christ.

One female pastor recently preached, saying:

“How we understand the word as its written in its original context, and how it’s written and understood today are equally important. It’s true that there are passages in Scripture that hold to a patriarchal understanding of women - meaning that men have authority over women. But it’s also true that there seem to be an equal number of examples of Scripture that actually speak to an egalitarian view of women in the church as well. That isn’t to say that women are over men, it’s to say that they are created equal.

We need to remember that scripture is written in at particular point at a particular time for a particular audience, and in the same way we read Scripture in our particular setting and sometime our lens gets blurry because of how we see Scripture in our own culture.”

Men and women are created equal in value and in worth, according to the image of God of which we all are designed to reflect. However, what we do as male and female are different and complementary, and that is indeed to say that men and women have different primary roles and functions that they are responsible for in the home, in the church, and in the world. I do not know of anywhere in the New Testament that commands us to or implies that we should live under patriarchal relationships; rather, Scripture calls us to consider others better than ourselves and to outdo one another in showing honor. While we must consult passages like Ephesians 5 on this issue of gender roles, we cannot and must not blur our spiritual lenses and put a veil over ourselves with our own ideas, biases of what we would like Galatians 3:28 to mean. To do so is eisegesis, a sin that all Christians must be aware of and repent of when we do it.

On this note, Wayne Grudem writes,

“To say that we are “one” means that we are united, that there should be no factions or divisions among us, that there should be no sense of pride and superiority or jealousy and inferiority between these groups that viewed themselves as so distinct in the ancient world.”

(Biblical Foundations For Manhood and Womanhood. Wheaton, IL: 2002, 42)

There is neither… nor.

I doubt anybody would have the audacity to argue from Galatians 3:28 that there no longer exists Jews or Greeks, males or females. In Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, Richard Hove notes on page 122 that the figure of speech utilized here is a “merism”, where pairs of opposites are used as a literary device to express this notion of universality. Thus, these three couplets of “there is neither” cannot mean abolishment of the races, servant relationships, or genders. The Apostle Paul also wrote in his epistle to the Ephesians that husbands and wives should act differently according to their different roles.

This negation is in regard to sonship in Christ, for that is the controversy in Galatia which is the concern of this epistle. Paul confronts the Galatians in response to their false belief that only Jews are sons and heirs in Christ. There is no distinction or partiality between anybody — regardless of race, occupation, or gender — in so far as we all are baptized in Christ; all who are in Christ are sons and thus heirs according to His promise!

“Jews should no longer think themselves superior to Greeks, freed men should not think
themselves superior to slaves, and men should no longer think themselves superior to women. They are all parts of one body in Christ, and all share in equal value and dignity as members of one body in Christ.” (Grudem, 43)

In context of redemptive history, this verse is significant in its exhortation that not only actual sons of Abraham (Jews) can be sons and heirs of Christ who would obtain His inheritance, but all who are in Christ. In the New Covenant inaugurated by the shedding of Christ’s blood, those who hear the Gospel with faith are thence justified as sons of Abraham (Galatians 3:5-6, 7-9). And so these blessings of Christ are universal for all people who believe in Christ.

That is why in Galatians 3:28 there is a unity between the genders that preserves, not abolishes, our unique differences as male and female, and our differing functions and responsibilities as men and women are shown to be supremely and equally valuable for the cause of union in Christ.

Also consulted for this post: Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, eds. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991).

To be concluded…
(I have a few more things to say, so I shall close this series tomorrow with some concluding remarks)

The evangelical drift away from Scripture’s complementary view manhood and womanhood towards (wo)man-centered egalitarianism has recently affected me in a most disturbing that is (literally) very close to home. I am deeply saddened right now, hearing earlier this week that it is happening at the church I previously attended back at home in Toronto. While something like this may have previously happened before unbeknownst to me, I regret that that day had finally come on September 30, 2007 and it is something that Satan has seared into my memory and journal. Whereas this elephant in the room was previously invisible and quiet, I can now see it clearly and I hear it speak. (It is pink, and everybody is listening to it talk.)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.

I have no doubt in my mind that God gifts and calls women to the ministry for the kingdom; I will not deny that ever. I confess that my own spiritual pilgrimage and call to ministry God has significantly used a woman to remind me of the truth in God’s Word. It was indeed Beth Moore’s sermon Galatians 6:7-9 at Passion06 conference that the Holy Spirit used in my heart to convict me of my calling.

However, Scripture is not silent about the roles of man and woman in the home (or the church, for that matter). See Genesis 1-3; Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 3:18-19; 1 Timothy 3:4, 12; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1-7. Scripture is clear that the man (husband) is to model loving, sacrificial leadership of Christ, and the wife is to model the glad submission by honoring and affirming her husband’s leadership. The relationship between husband and wife should biblically model that of Christ and the church. And thus, the roles of man and woman must first be framed in the home. Without a authentically applied biblical gender roles in the homes, there will not be biblical gender roles in the church.

This brings us the question of leadership in the church, and the role of women in ministry, which are the issues I am responding to. As a visible and local body of Christ in the New Covenant, we must consider the whole counsel of God throughout Scripture for His instructions on this matter, not neglecting the Old Testament and yet appropriately applying the didactic and narrative teachings on this from the New Testament. For this reason, we must look to 1 Corinthians 14:34-36, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, and 1 Timothy 2:11-15 for God’s written instructions on what He wants us to know about the role of women in the leading of the church. What we find is that “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture” (Baptist Faith and Message: VI. The Church). This is not being “conservative”, Calvinistic, or chauvinistic — this affirming what Scripture undeniably says and has said for two thousand years. This is being biblical, and we must be humble in accepting God’s Truth and obeying His Word.

I find it very ironic that nowhere in Scripture do find that God commands us not to baptize infants, seeing how we are still to this very day confronted with the credobaptist versus paeodobaptist question ever since Christ returned to heaven. However, we do find that God commands male headship in the church, having provided us with verse that says “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man”. Just as the The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood testfies,

We are persuaded that the Bible teaches that only men should be pastors and elders. That is, men should bear primary responsibility for Christlike leadership and teaching in the church. So it is unbiblical, we believe, and therefore detrimental, for women to assume this role.

Thus, gender is directly related to its roles; we cannot appropriately evaluate the meaning of one without the other. And as such, we must consider where many from the egalitarian position blur the gender roles and have created a exegetical fallacy.

To be continued…
(I will address that exegetical fallacy of Galatians 3:28 in part 2, from which I am responding to in this blog series)