Andrew Bartlett, a church leader in London, recently wrote a series of articles on the Christianity Today blog that he titled Worst New Testament Translations Relating to Women . He broke it up into four separate blog posts. I found each of them fascinating, and he touches on many of the same issues I talk about in some of my blog posts and sermons. I want to share these with you as you continue on your own journey through this topic. In the first blog post he talks about the translation that has the least shred of justification. In the second blog post he talks about the translation with the most negative description of women . In the third blog post he talks about the translation that is the most misleading . In the fourth blog post he talks about the translation that has the greatest impact on women .

  A Few Words About 11:2-16 Click here to watch the sermon from Sunday.  All scholars will tell you that the church in Corinth was one big mess. Many of those same scholars will tell you that some of what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians is also a bit of a mess. The perfect example of this truth is what Paul says about men, women, and head coverings in chapter 11. Speaking about this particular section of 1 Corinthians, one scholar suggested that there have been more theories proposed than there are scholars proposing them. The implication being that some scholars can’t decide, so they offer more than one theory. I don’t want to spend too much time on this particular section of 1 Corinthians because the difficulties associated with the passage have little to do with whether or not a woman can serve or lead in the public worship gatherings of the church. I find it difficult to deny that Paul believes both men and women will be leading the church in prayer and prophesying. That...

Thank you for sticking with me this long. We should never be afraid to explore. I am grateful for your willingness to explore with me as we talk about this very important topic. If you did not catch my sermon on Sunday, you can find it here . Unlike my previous sermons in this series, I don't have a much more to say about this one, so let's talk about something else related to our exploration of this topic: hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is just a fancy $10 seminary word that means the study of interpreting the Bible. How does one go about reading and interpreting the Bible? There is much more to it than just declaring “The Bible says it. I believe it. I do it!” If that were true, we would be greeting each other with holy kisses, gouging out our eyes, praying only in our closets, and women would all be wearing head coverings. I heard someone once say, “I don’t interpret the Bible. I just read it.” Well, that sounds good, but it is just not true. Everyone interprets the Bible.   ...

 In addition to the women I emphasized in my sermon, The BigStory, there are others that I simply did not have time to mention. If you have not listened to the sermon yet, you can find it here . These women are also important to the discussion, and I did not want you to miss their contributions. Mary Magdalene and the other women at the empty tomb Many scholars point out the historical significance of the first people to witness the empty tomb AND the first people to be told to proclaim the empty tomb. They were women! The resurrection is what all of Christianity hangs on. According to Paul, if there is not resurrection of Jesus then our faith is in vain. The most historically significant event in Christianity is first witnessed by and proclaimed by Mary Magdalene and the other women. Why is this significant? In Jesus’s day women were not considered credible witnesses. Yet, Jesus chose women to proclaim the very first resurrection message. Mary and these other women were the ...

I may not feel the need to do this with every sermon in this series, but for many of them I plan to say a little more in writing. I will share some thoughts on things that I either didn’t have the time to address in my sermon, or things that I just felt would distract from the flow of the sermon but still thought would be beneficial to share with you. First, let me say that there is a plethora of biblical approaches and interpretations to all of the scripture texts I will be focusing on throughout this series. People land all over the spectrum on this particular issue. I don’t have the time, nor do I feel it is necessary, to cover all the different interpretations and conclusions shared by different scholars and theologians. I simply want to take you on my journey, which a lot of different scholars have contributed to. But it would be unfair of me to not acknowledge that there is a lot of differing opinions among scholars related to the different scriptures we will be addressing in thi...