Near the end of Paul’s letter to the Christians of Rome, we gain a rare glimpse of a behind-the-scenes participant in Paul’s letter-writing ministry. Romans 16:22 says, “I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord” (NRSV). Tertius was Paul’s amanuensis, the person who penned the letter which Paul spoke aloud. His job was to prepare Paul’s words to be read and heard.
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“Your epidermis is showing!” my friends gasped, struggling to keep straight faces. Noticing the mischief in their eyes, I rolled my own with feigned confidence and hoped nothing embarrassing was actually happening. Still, I felt uneasy until I learned that “epidermis” was just a fancy word for skin. Their teasing capitalized on the distress we feel when we learn that something we thought was hidden (or didn’t know existed) is on public display.
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Several months ago, my wife and I attended an event where a panel of experts spoke about sex trafficking prevention. When asked what we, as regular people, can do to prevent sex trafficking, a Minneapolis police officer who works with both victims and perpetrators on a daily basis had only one response: “We need to reinvent what it means to be a man in our society.”
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Few things bring me more joy than seeing the gospel incarnated in the different cultures of our world. Each one has the potential to reveal something of the nature of God and his love. I was reminded of this recently when I read two accounts about Bible translation in Cameroon, both distributed by Bob Creson, the president of Wycliffe USA.
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Reporting a conversation he had with Martin Luther between April 7 and May 1, 1532, John Schlaginhaufen quoted the great reformer as contending:
Christ was an adulterer for the first time with the woman at the well, for it was said, “Nobody knows what he’s doing with her” (John 4:27). Again with Magdalene, and still again with the adulterous woman in John 8, whom he let off so easily.
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We are very pleased to publish this expanded edition of Priscilla Papers in celebration of the journal’s twentieth anniversary. During the last twenty years, its biblical scholarship on equality in the church, home, and world has reached hundreds of college and seminary libraries and the homes of thousands of lay people, pastors, and ministry leaders around the world.
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Inside the back cover of every issue of Priscilla Papers, we publish Christians for Biblical Equality’s “Statement of Faith.”
We do that so that everyone, including potential authors, will know what we affirm and, therefore, what topics and treatments of topics will be acceptable within our doctrinal borders.
The very first entry one encounters in our statement is this: “We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, is reliable, and is the final authority for faith and practice.”
What exactly do we mean by that?
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In a USA Today article entitled “Year In, Year Out, Women Have Game” (5.24.05, 9C, col. 2-5), journalist Douglas Robson noted that Andre Agassi’s achievement of becoming the man who has played in the most major tennis events, at 58 in number, still has not overtaken Martina Navratilova’s record of 67 or Amy Francis at 65 or Conchita Martinez at 61.
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Readers who love music know that a revolution has taken place in the world of A Cappella. Years ago, in the United States, A Cappella meant Barbershop four part harmonizing, and those of us who were children in the early years of the twentieth century remember the Barbershop groups that used to delight us all with old standards in those wonderful blends. Occasionally a group would transition to the pop charts, as did the female Barbershop quartet, The Chordettes, which was founded in 1947 by the daughter of the then president of The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. This rare group of women shouldered its way through the male-dominated movement, winning a spot on the Arthur Godfrey show (the Jay Leno of his day) while still competing in quartet conventions, and ended up partnering with the legendary bandleader Archie Bleyer to record such classic chestnuts as “Mr. Sandman.”
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