Happy Friday! Here are some great posts promoting biblical equality for women and men in the church, home, and world. Enjoy!
Pastors, You Have to Mentor Women, too, by Jeremiah Gibbs
“It’s time to stop sexualizing every relationship between male and female. If there is any place that these relationships should be able to happen, it should be within a community of those who radically follow Christ. It’s time for male pastors and leaders to set up relational boundaries that are on the other side of the Billy Graham rule for the sake of the church’s future. We need the women leaders that will be at the heart of that future.”
5 Books on Christian Doctrine without a Complementarian Edge, by Marg Mowczko
“I’ve compiled this list of books on Christian doctrine in response to a reader who has been asked to lead a woman’s group and teach “solid doctrine”. Her pastor gave her a book written by a well-known complementarian, but she would prefer to use one written by an egalitarian. I only knew of Michael Bird’s new book on theology, and wanted to know if there were others written without a complementarian edge. So I asked around.”
The Subjugation of Women, by Bob and Helga Edwards
“Contrary to the commentary work of St. Augustine and John Calvin, the apostle Paul nowhere instructs husbands to rule over their wives, either in his letter to the Ephesians or anywhere else in the New Testament.”
Waldensians, Women, and Preaching as a Political Act, by Brian Hamilton (Political Theology Today)
The fact that an untrained layman insisted on preaching was provocation enough, but the Waldensians also allowed women to preach. Throughout the twelfth century, women had been finding more and more ways to makes themselves part of European “religious” life—which is to say, a life that “renounced the world for Christ,” turning away from mainstream practice and towards a more rigorous identification with Christ and the apostles. In a number of popular renewal movements, men and women traveled together. Women claimed to be living the vita apostolica along with men.
This Week on The Scroll
What Makes You You? By Mimi Haddad
“While I am arguing that what is essential is also invisible, I am also celebrating the fact that the Cross does not eliminate gender and ethnic distinctions. Rather, the Cross unifies us despite these distinctions. What is more, the distinctions that once separated us now add to the strength and vitality within the body of Christ.”
Translation Differences Every Woman Minister Should Know (Part 1), by Kristen Caldwell
“In regard to certain passages of scripture that can serve to either empower women or subordinate them, one can sometimes identify misleading changes in translation with the use of these methods: adding of words (interpolations), removal of words, withholding of information that would alter translation decisions, and inconsistencies in translation in which identical words in similar contexts are defined differently. Other important differences may simply be gaps in translation.”
Translation Differences Every Woman Minister Should Know (Part 2), by Kristen Caldwell
“For the first 1,000 years of Christian history it was the consensus of Greek and Latin scholars that Junia was both an apostle and a woman … Despite this early attestation, at some point various translations inserted the name “Junias” as a hypothetical name for the person in Rom. 16:7 without any explanation.”
Single Women Warriors, by Emmaline Kempf
“As a single person, I have learned from these stories that I don’t need a significant other to fight for or to find my strength in their love to overcome adverse situations. All I need is to fight for what is right, believe that I have the power to do something, and trust that God will provide everything I need to do His will and live a life empowered by His Spirit.”
Any other posts we should know about? Feel free to recommend blog posts that affirm mutuality in ministry and marriage by sharing the title, author name, and URL in the comments.
*Note: Linking to these posts is not a CBE endorsement of previous or future written work or statements made by the authors.
