(Tim) Listening to one of the ClearNote Conference sermons this past weekend, it came to me that churches that hide the Biblical doctrine of sexuality by putting women forward as officers over men, as small group leaders over men, as directors of the diaconate over men, as advisers sitting in all the session meetings, as worship leaders of men, as teachers of men, as servers of the Lord's Supper to men; in other words, churches that do everything possible to hide the Creation Order God has ordained (without taking the final step of having a woman as a senior pastor) are placing stumbling blocks before women, denying them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
How so?
Well, if the Law is our schoolmaster to Christ; and if the constant theme of Scripture when it addresses the sins of woman is a clear note calling her to submit to the Creation Order, not teaching or exercising authority over man but submitting to her husband; when this Creation Order is hidden, it is one of the principal sins of woman that we are hiding, and thereby denying woman the call to repentance that would lead her to the Cross.
Put bluntly, churches that hide Scripture's doctrine of sexuality are obscuring the Law and obstructing woman's entry to repentance and faith...
The Apostles were relentless in publicly exposing the sin of the Jews as an integral part of their Gospel preaching. Over and over they proclaimed to them, "you killed Jesus." Exposed in their sin, then, the Jews fled to the Cross.
But today, we are relentless in hiding and conniving at woman's sin. We set up our churches in ways precisely designed to obscure God's Creation Order and run far away from any unique call to repentance aimed at the weaker sex.
Jesus asked the Woman at the Well about her husband, but none of us would be so gauche.
A truly contextualized ministry in the midst of the feminist heresy will call woman to submit to God's Creation Order. True contextualization is knowing that as we are faithful in presenting this Creation Order call, "the secrets of (the unbelieving woman's) heart are disclosed; and so (she) will fall on (her) face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among (us)." (1Corinthians 14:24,25).
Those who hide the Creation Order (as much as those who deny it) are faithless, and through their faithlessness they place a stumbling block before the very women they claim to be serving. They rob those women of the ability to repent at the principle place where they are rebels against their Maker.
This is the same error the Presbyterian Church (USA) makes in calling abortion "an act of faithfulness before God." Mothers who have murdered their unborn children are denied the call to repentance and a terrible stumbling block is placed between them and the Gospel. It is so very evil.
May God give us faith with both men and women to focus our preaching and teaching and pastoral care precisely at the gaps in the walls, trusting that a clear note of warning from God's Law will only be offensive to those whose hearts God has hardened.
To those appointed to salvation, it will be streams of living water.
