First-century Corinth and its challenges were not so different from our own. Upwardly mobile Christians facing radically diverse ethnic, religious, economic and social conditions. The church divided over issues of leadership and authority, sexual morality, gender and worship, marriage and divorce. Sound familiar? Yet as Alan Johnson highlights in this excellent commentary, in the midst of this detailed, practical letter to a church in crisis Paul has penned one of the greatest paeans to love ever written.
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Despite his special pastoral relationship with the church in Corinth, Paul confronted numerous local and cultural problems needing to be addressed. Utilizing a range of ancient sources, Craig Keener explains these problems and how Paul's arguments would have been communicated to a first-century audience.
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Scholar Veronica Mary Rolf introduces modern readers to Julian of Norwich by exploring her historical context, illuminating Julian's revelations and writings, and offering connections to a reader's life and experience.
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When rightly understood, Gen. 2:24-25 and Eph. 5: 21-33 provide an almost formula-like description for a pleasurable, loving, faithful marriage of oneness built on equality and mutuality. Modern science teaches what the writers of Genesis and Ephesians could not have known.
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Eminent Missionary Women by Annie Ryder Gracey in 1898 provides biographical sketches of a variety of nineteenth century missionary women.
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The book of Galatians reminds us we are called to be free, and to use that freedom to serve in love.
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The ordination of women has been a contentious issue in the history of the church. For almost nineteen centuries, churches have debated whether women should hold leadership positions within the body of Christ. Despite what women have done in the history of the church, some churches have found it difficult to ordain women to the Ministry of the Word and Sacrament based on cultural tradition. In fact, the question of ordination is still unanswered in many churches today.
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This recording examines how early church leaders viewed women. It begins with Jesus Christ, moves to Paul, and highlights how various early church leaders’ insights into Paul’s teachings are helpful in guiding us to understand those statements as Paul intended them, namely as affirmations of women and their leadership roles in the church. Some church leaders did this in spite of reflecting elsewhere the demeaning attitudes toward women common in their culture. This illustrates a gradual shift away from the New Testament’s affirmations of the equal standing of men and women in Christ.
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This five-part lecture series explores the biblical, historical, and social precedent for women's shared leadership in the church, the home, and the world. Topics include Old and New Testament evidence of women's leadership, women's leadership in church history, understanding power dynamics, and working cross-culturally.
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This recording examines the pivotal and strategic role of women in the ministries of Jesus and Paul respectively. In addition, it will consider theological and missiological reasons for women’s full and free participation in the church’s mission at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
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