Male and Female, He Created Them

So here I am minding my own business in Austin, Texas, when it becomes apparent that I need to preach a series of sermons about women in the Body of Christ and their public roles in worship. The congregation here has a long-standing commitment to expand the participation of women in the public worship. The problem is that the good teaching that was done here was done in 2005. The teacher is gone. The preacher at that time is gone. A different eldership is in place. So I need to put my own teaching out there for the church to consider. This eldership continues the commitment to change, but I need to outline the biblical teaching that under girds the direction we are heading.

Some folks believe that everything is settled on this matter just by checking a few proof-text verses and going on. I believe that before any verses are examined very closely it is good to know what the overarching teaching or theology is in which any verses about women in this case might be read. All the individual, exclusionary teachings must be set against the backdrop of what God has been doing from the time his image was expressed in the complementary unity of man and woman, against the backdrop of the thundering, Pentecost fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel and against Paul's teaching about the walls of separation that fall when the Jew, the Greek, the slave, the free, and the male and female come to Christ and are joined to him in baptism.

The issue of women's roles in the church is not just a women's issue. The truth is that men cannot know their roles until the roles of the women in the church are right and proper. No distorted role exists alone. The life of the oppressed slave isn't as it should be; neither is the life of the oppressing master as it should be. The abused child lives in a cruel, false world. The abusing parent has a world just as much a lie. The life of the suppressed Christian woman isn't as it should be; neither is the life of the suppressing Christian man as it should be. I want the women's roles to be as they should be in our church, so I will know who I am in Christ and His Body.

God bless us all.