I’m taking a class on the history of Antisemitism, but it has turned into the history of why Christians are the most terrible people on the earth. Can you help me refute my teacher? A few points I need to know about are: Why did the gospel writers present a central conflict between the Pharisees and Jesus? Why was such a conflict extremely unlikely? What would a Christian historian say about this? How can I argue with an overly zealous antichristian? She thinks the New Testament is completely false, only made up to morph Jesus into the Messiah the gospel writers wanted him to be, so I need evidence outside of the NT. I have read Case for Christ, which is awesome, but there’s still a lot of stuff from there that doesn’t help because she says the NT is false; the evidence that it was written in too short of a time for legend to creep in is false to her. Please help me with this problem.

I would personally not recommend arguing with an overly zealous anti-Christian for the simple reason that they are not presently open to what you have to say. I would rather pray for that individual, asking God to enlighten them to the truth of the Gospel. However, there is certainly a place for confronting error with the truth and for healthy dialogue about whether or not Christianity is true. With professors, this is usually best done one-on-one, in a friendly way, outside of class. Your professor will not like being made to look foolish in front of the class. (Who would?)

As for the other questions you ask, they can be somewhat involved. For this reason, let me recommend some additional resources that will be helpful to you for future opportunities of this kind.

• F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974).

• Gary Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, Missouri: College Press Publishing Company, 1996).

• Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1987).

If you look under Probe’s “Theology and Philosophy” section and our “Reasons to Believe” (Apologetics) section you can find many other helpful articles.

Also, bible.org has a number of excellent resources on their site. Articles on the Bible can be found at http://www.bible.org/topic.asp?topic_id=5 and articles on Christology can be found at http://www.bible.org/topic.asp?topic_id=6.

Finally, I have written a very short article dealing with some of the available evidence from Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, the Babylonian Talmud, and Lucian which you can find at: www.probe.org/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources-2/. My article is just a summary, written at a popular level for radio, and I don’t know if you would find it helpful or not.

I hope this information will be useful to you.

Best wishes,

Michael Gleghorn
Probe Ministries

In my college class, a girl asked the other day, “How can you be for the death penalty if you are pro-life?” She also said the Bible says don’t judge, so how can you use the death penalty (because you would be judging). I was trying to find out the correct way to let her know that you can be pro-life and for the death penalty.

The point of being pro-life is that we put the same high value of all life that God does, from the earliest pre-born baby to the last breath of an elderly, dying person. We derive our high value of life from the fact that every human being is made in the image of God. Thus, when someone takes the life of another in murder, they are treating the person they murdered as less important and valuable than they are. God instituted the death penalty Himself after the flood when He said, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God, He made man.” (Gen. 9:6)

The reason the death penalty is pro-life is that it puts the highest possible value on the life of the person murdered by exacting the life of the person who violated that value by murdering. It’s a strong way to say, “It is not OK for one human being to take the life of another. If you murder, you forfeit your own life because the person you killed is so valuable.”

Concerning judging: yes, the Bible does say don’t judge, but it also commands us to judge rightly. So you have to look at the context of commands such as “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matt. 7:1), which is about condemning others for doing the very same thing we do. Judging also means “be discerning” and “make a distinction between right and wrong.” Jesus repeatedly taught men to judge rightly, insisting they “judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24). He praised a man who “rightly judged” (Luke 7:43). Jesus also said, “And if your brother sins, go and reprove him, and if he refuses to listen, tell it to the church” (Matt. 18:15,17). Obeying such a command is only possible by making a judgment on one who sins. Jesus’ apostle Paul later gave God’s command to the church: “Do you not judge those who are within the church? . . . Remove the wicked man from among yourselves” (1 Cor. 5:12,13).

Also, the Bible tells us that governments (which are the only entities entitled to carry out capital punishment) are instituted by God for maintaining order: “[F]or [government] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. (Rom 13:4)

Thus, I would argue that the Bible supports capital punishment, although it is extremely important to make absolutely sure that only the guilty are executed.

Hope this helps!

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries

I stumbled upon a website that has an exhaustive list of apparent contradictions in the Bible. Now, I can go through many of them and figure out that what is seen as an apparent contradiction is nothing of the sort, but many of them leave me searching vigorously for an answer. Can you help me on these?

God is tired and rests [Ex 31:17, Jer 15:6]
God is never tired and never rests [Is 40:28]

and:

God is the author of evil [Lam 3:38, Jer 18:11, Is 45:7, Amos 3:6, Ezek 20:25]
God is not the author of evil [1 Cor 14:33, Deut 32:4, James 1:13]

Let’s begin with the first difficulty:

God is tired and rests [Ex 31:17, Jer 15:6]
God is never tired and never rests [Is 40:28]

This alleged difficulty confuses the issues of being tired, on the one hand, and resting, on the other. Exodus 31:17 does say that God “rested” or “ceased” His creative work on the seventh day. It does not say that God was tired. Jeremiah 15:6 (at least the relevant portion) might be translated, “I am weary of relenting” or “I have grown tired of feeling sorry for you”. The idea is not that God is “tired” in the sense of “fatigued.” Rather, God is weary of holding back His righteous judgment. Note what He says right before this phrase, “So I have unleashed my power against you and have begun to destroy you” (Net Bible – netbible.bible.org). These are not the words of a being who is tired in the sense of needing rest. These are the words of one who is tired of restraining His righteous judgment.

Thus, there is no contradiction with Isaiah 40:28, “He does not get tired or weary.” For Exodus 31:17 does not say that God was tired, and Jeremiah 15:6 does not mean that God was tired in the sense of being “fatigued.” The Bible does say that God rested, but it does not imply that this was due to tiredness on God’s part. The Net Bible comments on Gen. 2:2 as follows: “The Hebrew term (shabbat) can be translated ‘to rest’ (‘and he rested’) but it basically means ‘to cease.’ This is not a rest from exhaustion; it is the cessation of the work of creation.”

But what about the second alleged difficulty?

God is the author of evil [Lam 3:38, Jer 18:11, Is 45:7, Amos 3:6, Ezek 20:25]
God is not the author of evil [1 Cor 14:33, Deut 32:4, James 1:13]

Geisler and Howe have an excellent discussion of this issue in their book, When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties. I would heartily recommend this book, along with Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Both books deal with just about every Bible difficulty which critics raise against the Bible. So what do they say about this difficulty?

God is NOT the author of evil in the sense of “sin” or “moral evil” — at least not directly. God created free morally responsible creatures (like human beings) who chose to misuse their freedom to do what was morally evil. However, God is not the author of this evil; human beings are. God made such evil possible (by creating free moral creatures), but the creatures made such evil actual (by sinning, etc.).

However, God is sometimes the author of evil in the sense of “calamities” or “non-moral evil.” Such calamities might also be caused by Satan or demons (e.g. Job 1-2). However, God can also bring about calamities as a form of judgment against sin, etc. God does punish sin, sometimes through various calamities. But God is not the author of moral evil or sin.

I hope this makes sense. I would definitely recommend the books mentioned above by Archer and Geisler. I would also recommend the Biblical Studies Foundation website at www.netbible.com. They have hundreds of articles on a variety of biblical and theological issues.

The Lord bless you!

Michael Gleghorn
Probe Ministries

You Bible-thumping Christians are so deluded and stupid. The Bible has been so changed and translated and mistranslated over time that it can’t be trusted. Didn’t you play the telephone game when you were a kid? Whatever the first person whispered to the second person, is going to be very different from what the last person hears. Stop acting as if you have all the answers–your Bible is a book of myths.

You’re in good company; a lot of people think that way because they simply don’t know the facts about how trustworthy the Bible really is. When you find out the truth about how the Bible has been handed down from one generation to the next, your charge will have as much significance as proclaiming that courts have no basis for determining the constitutionality of issues since the Constitution was written so long ago we can’t know what it originally said.

But we can go back to the original Constitution and check, right?

We don’t have the original biblical documents, but we have the next best thing: thousands of copies of the original New Testament manuscripts, by which we can determine what was originally said. The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (www.csntm.org) tells me that the current number is about 5500 copies of just the Greek New Testament, and when we combine the Greek with all translations in the various languages before the printing press was invented, there are a staggering 15,000 copies of NT manuscripts in existence, with more being found every day!

Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason (www.str.org) helps illustrate how Bible scientists (the discipline of textual criticism) can assure us of the Bible’s accuracy:

RECONSTRUCTING AUNT SALLY’S LETTER

Pretend your Aunt Sally learns in a dream the recipe for an elixir that preserves her youth. When she wakes up, she scribbles the directions on a scrap of paper, then runs to the kitchen to make up her first glass. In a few days Aunt Sally is transformed into a picture of radiant youth because of her daily dose of “Sally’s Secret Sauce.”

Aunt Sally is so excited she sends detailed, hand-written instructions on how to make the sauce to her three bridge partners (Aunt Sally is still in the technological dark ages–no photocopier or email). They, in turn, make copies for ten of their own friends.

All goes well until one day Aunt Sally’s pet schnauzer eats the original copy of the recipe. In a panic she contacts her three friends who have mysteriously suffered similar mishaps, so the alarm goes out to the others in attempt to recover the original wording.

Sally rounds up all the surviving hand-written copies, twenty-six in all. When she spreads them out on the kitchen table, she immediately notices some differences. Twenty-three of the copies are exactly the same. Of the remaining three, however, one has misspelled words, another has two phrases inverted (“mix then chop” instead of “chop then mix”) and one includes an ingredient none of the others has on its list.

Do you think Aunt Sally can accurately reconstruct her original recipe from this evidence? Of course she can. The misspellings are obvious errors. The single inverted phrase stands out and can easily be repaired. Sally would then strike the extra ingredient, reasoning it’s more plausible one person would add an item in error than 25 people would accidentally omit it.

Even if the variations were more numerous or more diverse, the original could still be reconstructed with a high level of confidence if Sally had enough copies.

This, in simplified form, is how scholars do “textual criticism,” an academic method used to test all documents of antiquity, not just religious texts. It’s not a haphazard effort based on hopes and guesses; it’s a careful linguistic process allowing an alert critic to determine the extent of possible corruption of any work.{1}

When the thousands of copies of manuscripts (far more than for any other document of antiquity) are compared, we can know that the New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine.{2}

Even if all the manuscripts in the whole world were to disappear, the New Testament is so comprehensively quoted by early church letters, essays and other extra-biblical sources that we could still reconstruct almost the entire testament.

We have a much fuller explanation of this in our article “Are the Biblical Documents Reliable?” at www.probe.org/are-the-biblical-documents-reliable

The historical evidence for the reliability of the biblical documents is so great that we can rest assured that the Bible we read today is the same Bible that God intended for us to have from the very beginning.

Wishing you well,

Sue Bohlin

Probe Ministries

Notes

1. Greg Koukl, Solid Ground, Jan/Feb 2005, Stand to Reason.

2. Norman Geisler and William Nix, The Text of the New Testament (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 475.

When I pray, I pray to God and I pray in Jesus’ name. Others I know pray solely to Jesus. Should I be praying to Jesus as well as God? Furthermore, should I also be praying to the Holy Spirit?

It’s really not such a matter of “should,” but more like “get to.” There is only one God, but He consists in three Persons (which I’m sure you know). So, since there is only one God, no matter to which Person you address your prayers, the one God hears them.

Here’s how I look at it: Sometimes I address the Father, for example thanking Him for sending Jesus to die for me and live in me. Sometimes I address the Son, inviting Him to be present in an event or a job I’m about to be engaged in. Or thanking Him and praising Him for dying for me and calling me to be His bride. Sometimes I address the Spirit, asking Him to impress His presence on the heart of someone hurting, or asking Him to call the heart of someone who is lost. Most of the time I just say “Lord”!! <smile>

I hope this helps.

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries

I have question about nocturnal emissions or wet dreams. As a Christian seeking to to be released from sexual temptation, your writings have helped me center my thoughts on truth and gain victory over my temptations through the power of Christ’s blood. Despite these victories, and perhaps in spite of them, I am being plagued by nocturnal emissions.

Six months ago I gave my homosexuality over to Christ and am no longer living as a gay man. I have, however, struggled with the temptation to masturbate. It took me a while to recognize masturbation as sexually immoral. So I am no longer masturbating either.

At this point I began having frequent nocturnal emissions. It is somewhat embarrassing because it usually seems to be a problem that adolescents have; I am 22.

There have been some noticeable differences in how my nocturnal emission are occurring now than in the past. The biggest difference is that my dreams are often not sexual in content, where as in the past they usually were.

Scripture surprisingly seems to mention this more directly than masturbation, or at least in the Old Testament. It tells us that it is unclean, but compared to the verbiage used to describe homosexuality, it would seem it is not as bad. Is it wrong, though? Am I sinning, and if so, how do I keep from sinning when I am asleep? Do you think that they could be caused by spiritual attacks, or is it simply my body wanting to relieve tensions? I am truly concerned and very confused about this.

Thank you for a most open and encouraging email. You have made some tremendous strides forward in His grace that are humbling to read for one who has not struggled with the intensity you report.

To answer your major question, nocturnal emissions are universally understood to be a normal bodily response to accumulated semen. You never really stop producing semen and when you are not providing an outlet either through sexual intercourse or masturbation your body must expel the excess. I find it quite interesting that the content of your dreams associated with the emissions have changed as you have responded in obedience. What an incredible confirmation that God is honored by your choices. It should also be of interest to you that God has provided a moral release of these fluids apart from sexual activity. God has provided for abstinence and obedience!

Concerning the uncleanness issue, remember that a woman’s menstrual period was also considered a time of uncleanness in the Law of Moses. It is still normal and not sin, just unclean. Part of the reason for ceremonial uncleanness in the Old Testament was for simple hygienic reasons that early Israel would not fully understand so God gave laws for them to abide by.

In regard to their frequency, though I am not a medical doctor, I would expect for the frequency of emissions to diminish over time as your body adjusts to your abstinent choices. Our bodies are quite flexible and will adjust to most changes we institute. For instance, as you eat less, your stomach will eventually shrink a bit and it actually takes less to fill you up. As you begin to eat more, your stomach can begin to expand to accommodate the larger volume. So too with nocturnal emissions. I suspect that as your “demand” is reduced, production of semen will eventually slow down though never cease altogether.

Therefore I would not consider your emissions as sinful at all, just a natural bodily response to your current obedient choices. Be assured brother, you are not in sin! Not in the least! This is actual confirmation of correct choices. I rejoice with you and pray your unnecessary guilt will melt away.

Respectfully,

Ray Bohlin, PhD
Probe Ministries

Addendum by Sue Bohlin, August 2010

Recently I had the privilege of speaking to a group of young people at a conference about unwanted homosexuality. In a breakout session dealing with replacing the lies we believe with the truth from God’s word and God’s world, I was addressing the lie “I can’t live without sex,” replacing it with the truth that sex is not a basic requirement like food, water and sleep. I supported my argument with the verse from Psalm 139 that says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” explaining how nocturnal emissions are God’s design for expelling the buildup of seminal fluid.

One young man told us a fascinating story:

“I had never experienced a wet dream. I was reading one of the discussion threads on the Living Hope Youth Forum (www.livehope.org) about the ‘6 Week Challenge.’ That’s where people challenge each other to go six weeks without masturbating. [The original poster wrote, “The hope is that by abstaining for this period of time, we can break the cycle of continually running back to P & M (pornography and masturbation) as “medications” for our problems and struggles, and instead learn to run to Jesus and other healthy replacements.’]

“I decided to take the six-week challenge. After I reached six weeks, I kept going. After no sexual activity for eight months, one night I had an incredibly intense dream. I was in the throne room of God. There was glory and beauty and light everywhere. Suddenly I realized God was showering me with such delight and favor. Somehow in the dream He was letting me know that He loves me, He delights in me and He’s proud of me. I had this amazing sense of incredible joy that exploded inside me. Then I woke up, and I realized I’d had a wet dream.”

One of the other students said, “Dude, are you kidding me? You’re saying that your wet dream was connected to this spiritual dream that God was, like, proud of you?”

He replied, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

I thought that was most interesting.

I got married right out of high school (34 years ago), and my husband committed adultery and divorced me a year later. Neither of us were Christians. I married someone else four years later, and two years into our marriage, my husband and I became Christians.

Is it considered “committing adultery” if:

—My previous husband had committed adultery while we were married?
—We weren’t Christians when we did all this?

Are we STILL committing adultery by remaining married?? A few years ago, we wanted to join a church, and they said we couldn’t because I had been married before. And they said we needed to seperate because God did not recognize our marriage and we are still committing adultery by staying married. We have been happily married for 26 years now, with two wonderful children. What should we do??????

Dear friend,

I’m sitting here shaking my head at the insensitivity, not to mention the biblical misunderstanding, of the church that gave you such lousy counsel. It sounds to me like that was God’s way of saying, “This is not the place for you, beloved!”

Bottom line: neither you nor your husband are committing adultery.

God specifically says in His word that when one person commits adultery, the other is free to remarry without committing adultery. Your first husband broke your marriage covenant, giving you freedom to marry your present husband to the glory of God. (And it would appear that God is glorifying Himself through your present marriage!)

In Matt 5:32 and 19:9, Jesus says that if someone divorces a spouse for any reason other than adultery, they commit adultery when they remarry. This is because the divorce is illegitimate, and the second marriage is bigamy since the first marriage is still in force regardless of what the civil authorities say. But if the other spouse has committed adultery, then that act has broken the sacred covenant, and it is not bigamous (and thus not adulterous) for the sinned-against spouse to remarry.

That church may have been standing on the second part of Matt. 5:32, which says “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” It’s important to understand the culture of that day. There was a popular movement in Jewish culture that said a man could divorce his wife for any reason at all, including burning the toast. (I am not kidding.) Such a wife, thus divorced, was single in the eyes of the culture, but still married in the eyes of God, so any man who married her committed adultery since she was still a married woman.

You did not fall in that category. When your first husband committed adultery, that dissolved the marriage in God’s eyes (in a manner of speaking), and you were free to remarry. I am so sorry that church refused to check into the circumstances of your divorce. If Jesus made an exception for adultery, and then Paul, writing with the very words God gave him, made an additional exception for abandonment by an unbelieving spouse (1 Cor. 7:15), then the church needs to follow ALL of scripture and not just one verse.

You did not commit adultery when you married your present husband, and you are not committing adultery by remaining married to him, and the Lord bless you for staying together for 26 years! Way to go!!! <smile>

I wish you were in Dallas. I’d invite you to our church where you would be honored and affirmed.

I hope this helps!

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries

P.S. I do want to make a distinction here: adultery does not mandate divorce, but God does allow divorce as a consequence of adultery. It’s even better for the unfaithful spouse to repent, for the violated spouse to forgive, and for them to forge a new, stronger relationship. This isn’t always possible due to the hardness of some people’s hearts, and God understands and allows for it.

A friend and I were discussing whose rule the world was under, God’s or Satan’s. Of course we disagreed because I said God ruled the world and allows Satan to take us through suffering to make us strong and to test our faith. My friend feels that the world belongs to Satan because Eve succumbed to Satan in the Garden of Eden. Please clarify who controls the world today.

Thanks for your letter. Satan has been temporarily granted a tremendous amount of power over this world, as can be seen from the following passages:

John 12:31 – Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.

2 Cor 4:4 – …in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

1 John 5:19 – We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

But God is the One who ultimately rules and reigns over all things. He is the Creator of all that exists (other than Himself of course) and all things are ultimately subject to His will and power. Many passages of Scripture bear this out – e.g. Psalms 9:7; 22:28; 47:8; 59:13; 66:7; 97:1; 99:1; 103:19; 146:10, as well as passages such as Gen. 1-2; Job 1-2; John 1; Eph. 1; Col. 1; Rom. 9-11; Rev. 19-22; etc.

Satan is a creature; God is his Creator. Satan cannot do anything that the Lord does not permit him to do (see Job 1-2) and God will one day cast Satan into the lake of fire for all eternity (Rev. 20:10).

Shalom,

Michael Gleghorn
Probe Ministries

I have been going out with my boyfriend for a year now, I love him so much and there is no doubt he loves me. I always want to be with him but it’s not possible at the moment because we are far from each other. I am at university in another country so we only communicate through the phone and emails. We are both devorted Christians, we love God and we comfort each other knowing that God has a purpose and plan for our relationship even as we long to be together.

My problem is I think about him a lot, I think about him sexually also. I long to be with him everyday and I tell him this. I dream of us being intimate, I pray about this and ask God for guidance. I love him so much and there is nothing in the world that I would want right now except to be with him. We are hoping to get married next year when I finish my studies but the thing is it’s hard for me now, I just want to be with him. It hurts me worse when I see other people spending time with their loved ones, it makes me feel so lonely and I start thinking of the warm feeling that he makes me feel when I am with him.

I completely understand! My husband just returned from a missions trip out of the country for two weeks and I missed him so much I could practically TASTE it!

What you have isn’t so much a problem as it is a painful condition of being separated. Your longing to be with him in every possible way is part of love. I would like to suggest that you turn your emotional energies (and you have a LOT of those for him, right?) from painful feelings into constructive prayer. Every time you find yourself missing him and longing for him, pray for him. There are many scripture prayers you can pray, and I think you would find it very helpful to make a special prayer journal into which you copy scripture that you turn into prayer for him. For example, consider Eph.1:15-19–

15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints,
16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.

You can turn it into a prayer:

“I do not cease giving thanks for _____, while making mention of him in my prayers; that You, Father, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to him a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of You. I pray that the eyes of his heart may be enlightened, so that he will know what is the hope of Your calling, what are the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of Your power toward us who believe.”

You can use this time of separation to “log in” hundreds and hundreds of scripture prayers for your beloved, which you can read from your journal (even if it’s a collection of index cards) as prayers as you add to them.

Here is a web page to give you a head start on coming up with some great scripture prayers:
http://www.believers.org/believe/bel117.htm

I hope this helps!

Sue Bohlin

Dear Sue,

I really have to write you this. I met you at the Mind Games conference in Fall 2004 at my university and asked about the role of women in the pastorate. You gave a convincing view from the Scriptures that women are not allowed in the office of pastor. Even when I asked when a husband and wife team found a church and the Husband serves as Senior Pastor and the Wife as Co-Pastor, you said without apprehension “They are well meaning people, but they are deceived.” Honestly I could just cry in my soul. “Deceived” meaning that Satan the deceiver purposely deceived these people to start a church to carry on the mission of Jesus Christ and go out into the world and save those who are lost and edify the Church? I cannot fathom this is going on between Bible-believing Christians (or so they say) about saving souls and ministering to the Body of Christ. I do believe in the complementary natures of male and female, males serving as the primary heads of their families.

Maybe I come from another perspective, being raised where women did serve in ordained ministry. As I read on more of this, I read that various evangelical denominations (who do believe male and females are complementarily created, who oppose the ordination of homosexuals, same-sex marriages and abortions) for over a century have had women serve in ordained ministry.

What is the divine judgment of this: Will these “deceived” people inherit the kingdom of God or go to hell? Only “complementarians” will be saved? What? I don’t get it! Clear this up for me because souls depend on it!!

I am so sorry that my comments have caused you such grief. Had I known your question came from your heart and not just your head I’m sure I wouldn’t have responded so cavalierly.

I would gently suggest that you are making an unwarranted jump of logic here:

“Deceived” meaning that Satan the deceiver purposely deceived these people to start a church to carry on the mission of Jesus Christ and go out into the world and save those who are lost and edify the Church?

No, starting a church and saving the lost is not the same thing as installing a woman as pastor and leader in a church. “Deceived” meaning, convincing oneself that the end justifies the means. That even though God says in His word, “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim 2:12), somehow it’s OK for a woman to be in pastoral authority over men in the congregation. I believe that God calls people to start churches all the time, to carry on the mission of Jesus Christ and bring the gospel message to the lost and edify the church—but only within the limitations He has set up according to His design for men and women. I can see that God would call a couple to start a church, but there’s a big difference between working as a team to plant a church with the wife supporting her husband and contributing her gifts to the church, and the wife being a co-pastor. (Unless her pastoring [shepherding] is limited to women and children.)

As I have thought about your e-mail, I was reminded of Sarah, who believed that God was going to fulfill His promise of a son, but decided to help God out by doing things HER way. . . and the world’s been dealing with the complication of Ishmael ever since. She was right to believe God for a miracle son, but she was wrong to go about it in the flesh. Women pastors are right to believe that God wants to do wonderful, marvelous things to build His kingdom, but wrong to go against and beyond His restrictions in the Word.

I don’t believe women being pastors is a salvation matter. It’s an obedience issue. I know these women say, “But God called me to this position,” and my response can only be, “God would not call you to something He has restricted to men in the Word.” They are mistaken in how they walk out their calling. I know God calls women to shepherding ministry all the time; in fact, one of my spiritual gifts is pastor-teacher. But that means I am called to minister to women (and children would be OK too but that’s not where God called me), not be in any kind of teaching position or authority position over men.

Does this help explain my position more?

Blessings,

Sue

P.S. Something God showed me last year about a big reason women are not to be pastors is Eph. 3:14-15

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name

A much better translation of “family” is “the lineage descending from a common father” or “fatherhood.” (The Greek word is patria, which is closely related to the word pater [father].) Male leadership and headship is an earthly manifestation of our heavenly Father’s role of leader, protector, and provider toward all of us, and women pastors cannot reflect the fatherhood aspect of God. This is a minor, but nevertheless important, supporting reason for God’s restriction on women from having positions of leadership over men. It’s backwards.

Dear Sue,

I thank you for responding to the letter. It seems that “women CANNOT hold authority over men” sounds like a Universal Truth about women, therefore a bit contradictory. Why can women hold postions of civil authority and professional authority over men but not in the church. Doesn’t the “order of creation” come to play in every facet of life on this side of glory? Women SHOULD not hold positions of authority over men in any shape form, or fashion if this is a UNIVERSAL TRUTH. For instance, a woman is president of a Fortune 500 company and “exercises authority” over five thousand men in her company. Why is that God, who in your position retricts pastoral authority to men, give Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, spiritual authority as prophetess. Yes, they were not in the priesthood which was restricted to men. But they were not called to be priests, but prophets. The old priesthood was done away with when Christ went to a cross. And how is that the gift of PASTOR is separated from the office of PASTOR? God’s Word is spirit and life (Jn 6:63). What difference is the sermon if it comes out of the mouth of a man or a woman if it is thus saith the Lord, not Rev. Billy or Rev. Joan? God’s Words have no gender distinction. Please explain.

Why can women hold positions of civil authority and professional authority over men but not in the church.

Civil authority and professional authority are of the world; ecclesiastical authority is of the church. Two different realms.

Doesn’t the “order of creation” come to play in every facet of life on this side of glory? Women SHOULD not hold positions of authority over men in any shape form, or fashion if this is a UNIVERSAL TRUTH. For instance, a women is president of a fortune five hundred company and “exercises authority” over five thousand men in her company.

I would respectfully suggest that things work better if women do not hold positions of authority over men, even in the world.

Why is that God, who in your position retricts pastoral authority to men, give Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, spiritual authority as prophetess.

To be a prophetess is to offer the words of God to His people, but there is no authority inherent in the position. There are many places for women to serve in the body of Christ, and prophetess was/is one of them. As webservant for Probe Ministries, I send out e-mails informing people of new files on our website, offering the words of Probe to people in effect, but I have no authority over anyone either.

Yes, they were not in the priesthood which was restricted to men. But they were not called to be priests, but prophets. The old priesthood was done away with when Christ went to a cross. And how is that the gift of PASTOR is separated from the office of PASTOR?

Because all of God’s people need to be shepherded. Women are excellent at shepherding other women and children (a VERY powerful position of service!!) and we are called to do exactly that in Titus 2. There is a distinction between the gift of shepherding and the office of shepherding because God’s way is to put men in positions of spiritual authority, so only men should have the office of shepherding.

God’s Word is spirit and life (Jn 6:63). What difference is the sermon if it comes out of the mouth of a man or a woman if it is thus saith the Lord, not Rev. Billy or Rev. Joan? God’s Words has no gender distinction. Please explain.

God’s Word DOES have a gender distinction when it comes to how things work in the church. We can’t get around “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” We can’t get around the requirements for elder as being HUSBAND of one wife, which is a very definite gender distinction. We can’t get around the fact that Jesus chose 12 men as His apostles and leaders of His church, even though there were women who traveled with them and ministered to them in a service capacity.

There is also a difference between a person standing up reading scripture, which I would argue is open to both genders in a worship service, and a person standing up preaching a sermon, which is far more than simply reading scripture (“Thus saith the Lord.”) A preacher is making statements about God and about the meaning of His word from a position of authority. God says only men belong in that position.

I understand the sweetness and compassion of your heart that wants women to have as much spiritual power and access to people as possible, and bless you for it, but what do you do with the Biblical restrictions of women in positions of spiritual authority? How do you deal with 1 Tim. 2:12-3:7?

Dear Sue,

God bless you for your wisdom and conviction!! I totally admire that!! I guess there will be these FIERY (hopefully loving and prayerful) discussions within the Body of Christ til our Master comes back for His children. And in that day He will not come back for complementarians or egalitarians, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, or Pentecostal-Charismatics. He’s coming back for us! And joyfully all of his children will be on one accord. Because in its totality, ministry of any form is not about our self-promotion, or egos. It’s about Him. And the fact that we can agree to disagree on the hermeneutics of the Scriptures without bashing each other because we want to serve our God in our total capacities (however we may view them!) is really evident that we do care for our brothers and sisters in Christ, and how we don’t want to marginalize them because some in Church History have abused their authority and opressed, repressed, and suppressed the voices of God’s daughters for their own gain. And let just say that, you may not hold an OFFICE Mrs. Bohlin, you surely have a PASTOR’s heart (for women anyway)!!!

May God Richly Bless You and Yours,

______

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