Priscilla Papers | Academic Journal | Autumn 2013
An interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal exploring Bible interpretation, theology, church history, and other disciplines as they address a biblical view of women’s equality and justice in the home, church, and world.
"Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos more perfectly in the way of the Lord." (Acts 18:26)
Academic JournalsThe opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of CBE International or its members.
Autumn 2013
Volume: 27 | Number: 4
Divine Equality, Human Equality
This issue examines both human equality in the church and the divine equality within the Trinity, from the New Testament through the early church to the writing of the creeds.
Contents
When editors Ronald Pierce and Rebecca Groothuis’s Discovering Biblical Equality came out in 2005, many were surprised to read its subtitle: “Complementarity without Hierarchy.” “Wasn’t that term ‘complement’ already taken? Didn’t it already mean ‘hierarchical’ by its inherent nature? Was this a case of co-opting a word and attempting to redefine [...]
A superficial glance at the New Testament in translation, combined with an expectation of a subordinate role for women, results in generalizations that Paul commands women not to teach or have authority (1 Tim 2:11–15), except in the case of older women teaching younger women how to be housewives (Titus 2:3–5), and women are not to teach in [...]
What the creeds and confessions teach is called “the theological tradition,” or “the interpretative tradition,” or just “the tradition.” Evangelicals agree this codified body of prescribed doctrines is a subordinate authority. Scripture is the ultimate authority. This is true, yet, in practice, these two authorities cannot be sharply separated.
Is God more like a totem pole or a circle? That is to ask, is God a being in tandem, a hierarchical Godhead with degrees of rank, glory, and even divinity: the Father at the top, the Son in the middle, and the Holy Spirit on the bottom? Or, is the Trinity an equal community— [...]
The doctrine of the Trinity is one of those core Christian beliefs that—on the basis of scriptural revelation, orthodox religious tradition, and common Christian spiritual experience—was carefully pondered, debated, and then formulated in the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed. These “ecumenical creeds” are recognized and subscribed to by most Roman Catholic, [...]
As night gives birth to a billion stars
when day is gone
darkness is ever destined to be
the herald of dawn;
out of a place where hope is not
must hope be born.
Behold a child is softly crying
who will save a world lost and dying,
the wooden trough where he is lain
precursor to a cross of pain.
Like Mary waiting on Easter morning
regretting a dream she thought was dead
in a world whence God had seemingly fled
leaving her weeping, perplexed, forlorn,
but daring to ask “Where is the Lord?”
and hearing at last the holy word,
Alan Johnson, emeritus professor of New Testament and Christian ethics at Wheaton College (Illinois), has put together autobiographical accounts of twenty-seven evangelical leaders, both men and women, from many denominations.
