Crowds without Conversion - by Ethan Jago

Found here. Our comments in bold.

----------------------------

Crowds don't equal revival. We agree. This article is built on those four words, with John chapter 6 providing Scriptural cover for the author. But John chapter six isn't about revival or the possibility of crowds not meaning revival.

It takes a long time for the author to get to his solution, which he equates with evaluating a church. That is, he wants all the elements of a church expressed in a revival. 

But ultimately the author is skeptical. His skepticism is based on semantics, tradition, and preconceptions. We can't call it revival because we don't know if anyone is being revived. We can't call it revival because revival must look the a certain way. We can't call it revival because revivals are like churches. It can't be revival because the Gospel wasn't preached.

However, it seems to us that revival is whatever God wants it to be. It looks however God wants it to look. God can use any sermon, any setting, and any group of people to bring revival. And every church and every supposed revival is a mix of Holy Spirit and flesh. That does not determine whether not God uses them.

Revival is chayah:

3. quicken, revive, refresh:

a. restore to life, the dead 1 Samuel 2:6; Deuteronomy 32:39; Hosea 6:2; the dying Psalm 71:20.

b. cause to grow, grain Hosea 14:8.

c. restore, a ruined city 1 Chronicles 11:8, stones destroyed by fire Nehemiah 3:34.

d. revive, the people by himself with fulness of life in his favor Psalm 80:19; Psalm 85:7; Psalm 119:25,37,40,50,88,93,107,149,154,156,159; Psalm 143:11; Ecclesiastes 7:12.

Some OT verses that speak of revival:

Ps. 119:37 Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, And revive me in Your way.

Is. 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says — he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

What the NT has to say:

Ac. 2:21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Acts 3:19-21 ESV Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Ro. 13:11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

Ephesians 5:14 ESV For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Surely the Church, this nation, and the world needs revival. Revival in a rekindling of flagging faith, revival via new salvations, and revival of the preaching of the Gospel. We need revival in every facet of the faith, revival that invades godless structures, cold, dead churches, and revival in evil strongholds for the sake of the Kingdom. 

It's God's purpose and desire in these Last Days: 

Ac. 2:17-18 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

Does the author want this? Then he might want to abandon his skepticism. It isn't useful. In fact, the author ought to be praising God for the possibility that it might be revival. And he might want to check out what actual witnesses have written about Asbury. Nearly every criticism the author makes gets negated. 

Crowds don't mean revival, but revival means crowds. If maybe it's not revival, we yet rejoice over a taste of a greater thing to come.

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Bad worship songs: Worthy (Elevation/Brown, Furtick)

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, Worthy. 

Video found here.

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The Pastor’s Responsibility in Discerning Worship - by David de Bruyn

Found here. Our comments in bold.
--------------------------

The author wants to teach his tradition, not the Bible. He likes the old hymns and the traditional worship service. He does quote a couple of relevant Scriptures, but explains them in terms of his preferences, not for what they actually teach.

His greatest fear is that people might worship emotionally. He cites no Bible verse regarding this supposed danger, but he's absolutely certain it is dangerous. And, his remedy is to obligate the overworked pastor to keep the musicians in line.

What is the real purpose of this article? Well, actually, to admonish pastors to keep modern worship music out of their churches. This music is upsetting, it sounds worldly, and it doesn't have enough theology in it.

Because the author does not draw his conclusions from the Bible, we must deem this Bad Bible Teaching.

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False Teacher of the Day #61: Isaiah Saldivar - by Publisher

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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1362 words, zero from the bible. Zero from documented sources. Zero quotes of Saldivar's supposed false teaching. There are many undocumented claims and inferences and implied causes and effects. But no actual discussion of the issues, and no explanation of the truth contrary to Saldivar's teaching.

This is nothing more than a long, unattributed, unverifiable screed, full of loose accusations and summary conclusions. There are no facts stated at all.

We must deem this Bad Bible Teaching. Really bad.

We should note that we are not here to defend Saldivar. We are only interested in evaluating the unnamed "publisher's" unfocused rant.

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Who Was Timothy? - by William Barcley

Excerpted from here. Our comments in bold.
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The author does a good job in describing Paul's relationship to Timothy. He ably explains Timothy's role as Paul's associate and helper (we redacted most of this, however), but somehow ignores his own observations when it comes to pastors. It is here where he goes off track by thinking Timothy was a pastor. He was not.

The author is simply teaching his tradition that pastors are the CEO heads of local churches, with everyone else subordinate to him.

First and Second Timothy and Titus have been characterized as "pastoral epistles." The assumption is that Paul wrote these letters to teach these men how to pastor their churches. However, there is nothing in the Bible that even suggests that these men were pastors. "Pastor" and "shepherd" are not found in these letters. 

From this initial errant assumption descends other errors, which eventually leads to a complete misapplication of these letters. These assumptions  

• are used to justify the unbiblical leadership structure that a singular pastor presides over the congregation
• unduly expands the scope of Paul's personal instructions to apply universally
• derive unbiblical ideas about how church services should be conducted

We would therefore assert that these letters are not "pastoral" letters, which means Paul was not giving "pastoral" direction. These men were not sent to preside over these churches, but rather to correct them and install leadership.

Regarding Timothy, Paul's clear purpose in writing to him was to first, encourage him to stay true to the faith; second, to provide guidance on the conduct of Christians; third, to instruct him on how to handle situations in this church; and fourth, to install elders to lead this church.

He wasn't sent to be a pastor, he was sent to fix this church.

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Bad Worship Songs: What a God, what a God - by SEU Worship

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, What a God.

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Who Should Serve the Elements of the Lord’s Supper? Who may offer and who may withhold the bread and the wine? - by O. Palmer Robertson

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Hot on the heals of our recent post regarding who can receive communion comes this article regarding who can administer it.

And once again we find an author who does not teach the Bible, he teaches his tradition. Worse, the author only manages to quote one verse and snippets of four others in a 2050 + word essay. Incredible. How does one explain doctrines without quoting the Bible?

We therefore must deem this Bad Bible teaching.

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Are you SURE you want “the first century church”? - By Elizabeth Prata

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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This is the way political Leftists argue. "Oh, so you want to go back to the 1950s? You must want women repressed and separate drinking fountains for blacks." "Oh, so you want government to obey the Constitution? You mean the document written by white European slave-owners?"

Those who want to regain the passion and power of the early church are obviously not including the faults of the early church. This is simply nonsense. To insist that to have such a desire means we must take the bad with the good is to argue dishonestly and divert from the matter at hand.

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Who Should Be Admitted to the Lord’s Supper? 4 Views - by Davy Ellison

Found here. Our comments in bold.
--------------------------

The author considers communion only in terms of his tradition, that it is a somber, introspective church ceremony. So the debate for him is who is eligible to partake of the ritual.

This completely misses the teaching of the passage. The early church was actually gathering together to eat a meal, a "commun"-ity practice:

Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

The Lord’s Supper was a potluck, not a ceremony. It was likely a joyous event, with lots of laughing. But the problem was, certain people were eating all the food and getting drunk while others were left hungry. This dishonored the Body of Christ, that is, the community of believers: 

1 Cor. 11:22 ...do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?

The self-examination Paul commanded was to consider one's attitude toward the brothers: 

1 Cor. 11:29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

This thought continues into chapter 12:

1 Cor 12:13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink.

One might say that Paul’s discussion about the Lord’s Supper continues all the way to chapter 14, because it is all regarding how the Body ought to conduct itself when it gathers together.

Clearly we are not dealing with a ritual here. Given this, it almost seems nonsensical to discuss categories of participation in a community meal. In fact, to exclude anyone would be ironic, since that's what Paul was correcting. 

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The Phoebe Hoax - by Denny Burk

Found here. Our comments in bold.
---------------------

The author quotes the subject Scripture (Romans 16:1-2) and one other (1 Timothy 2:12)  in 1900 words. He wastes over 400 words quoting various "egalitarians" (a term he never defines, though he uses it fourteen times). He's attempting to bolster his doctrine against women church leaders, and uses these "egalitarians" as the opportunity.

Let's quote the verses:

Ro. 16:1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church in Cenchrea. 2 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me.

In verses 1-15 Paul commended a number of people to the church in Rome, beginning with Phoebe. She gets the most extensive treatment of anyone. Clearly Paul held her in high regard, so high in fact that his instruction included the directive that they should give her anything she wanted. 

Since the author discusses the meaning of a couple of the Greek words, we shall expand his efforts in order to capture the magnitude of Paul's commendation.

The Greek word for "commend" is sunistémi, which means to stand in union with. Paul was not giving a tepid recommendation, He was standing together firmly with Phoebe.

"Sister" is adelphé, a part of the family, a woman believer. Paul included her as a precious part of the community of believers.

"Deaconess," a word the author generically defined, is diákonos (diá, "thoroughly" and konis, "dust") – properly, "thoroughly raise up dust by moving in a hurry, and so to minister." The author does his best to separate Phoebe from church leadership, but this is not about authority, it's about how hard Phoebe worked on behalf of the Church. She was rather remarkable in this, according to Paul. 

The idea that we must decide whether or not Phoebe was a church leader is completely irrelevant. She was a servant, like Paul described himself: 

1Co. 3:5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe — as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

Further, she was described specifically as a deaconess of the church in Cenchrea, she was not simply a generic servant or a helper like all the others in Paul's list. She was associated with a specific church as a deaconess, and recognized for this work.

"Receive" is prosdechomai, expectant waiting where a person is ready and willing to receive... So because of this remarkable woman, Paul instructed the Roman church to be completely open to her coming.

"Worthy" is axiós. Paul's thought here is to tell the Roman church the manner in which Phoebe should be received, to "mirror the honor Christ bestows on all His people." Phoebe clearly worked very hard for the cause of Christ within her church and also as an itinerant servant. She was not some nameless worker, but a person worthy of note.

So from these words we see that Phoebe was a special woman to both Paul and the Church, a woman of position in a local church who worked very hard serving the saints all over the region. Having a position is not the same as being in authority. She had a high position, but that does not speak to church leadership. In fact, being a deacon by title still does not place a person in leadership. A deacon is not an elder.

Why is the author trying so hard to put Phoebe in her place?  He microanalyses these verses because he wants to make sure we don't think too highly of Phoebe. The reason? If Phoebe is in any sense a leader, this would violate the author's doctrines. Mistaken doctrines, that is. 

The author thinks Phoebe cannot be a deacon in the church because of the second Scripture he quotes:

I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet” (1 Timothy 2:12)

We discuss this verse here. Suffice to say, it is not a verse about church leadership structure.

Our last observation is regarding the author's statement: 

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that male headship was something that was observed by all the apostles and all the churches (1 Cor. 11:16). Are we really to believe based on some specious historical background that Paul intended for Phoebe to do in Rome the very thing he prohibits women from doing in every other church? 

The author misrepresents this unquoted passage. Paul was not talking about church government. If he was, that would mean ALL women must submit to ALL men, which of course is nonsense. No, this submission is a wife to her husband in the context of the gathering of the saints. 

We must deem this Bad Bible Teaching.

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Bad worship songs - Names (Cook, Ingram, Hudson)

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, Names.
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Separate Ways - by J.V. Fesko

Found here. Our comments in bold.

-------------------

The author presumes that any person who wants to attend a Reformed/Calvinist church is automatically correct, but if this person's spouse doesn't want to, well, they need to be "gently" persuaded.

Doctrine is the measure. And it's a very particular set of doctrines. These doctrines are an end to themselves, doctrine for doctrine's sake. Such doctrines don't edify, don't encourage holiness, and are in the end of no practical use. 

The fact that these odd doctrines occupy such prominence in a church is telling. While we don't doubt that Reformed/Calvinists on the whole are Christians, this article has troubling cultic undertones. It's presented as practical advice, but it is a bit creepy.

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Bad Worship Songs - Tremble, By Mosaic MSC (Bentley, Fieldes, Figueroa, McManus)

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, Tremble.

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The Plurality of Elders Protects a Pastor (& a Church) from Disaster - by Jonathan L. Shirk

Excerpted from here. Our comments in bold.

-------------------

We think this fellow is on the right track to understanding proper church leadership. He's not all the way there yet, however.

He accurately teaches that the church is to be led by a plurality of elders, and cites the appropriate Scriptures to illustrate this fact. He acknowledges the perils of being a pastor/chief leader of a church and how it endangers the pastor. But he doesn't put two and two together. 

Biblically speaking, pastors do not lead churches. At all. Pastors aren't necessarily even in church leadership. Pastoring arises out of the eldership as one of their duties. The author quotes the verse from 1 Peter chapter five that explains this: 

...shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you...

Peter exhorted the elders to be pastors and overseers. He doesn't tell them to install a pastor or overseer. The author sees and acknowledges all of this, yet still describes himself as "the minister of Jerusalem Church." He advocates for elder leadership yet seems to be the singular leader, presumably with underling elders performing delegated tasks.

This traditional view of pastor as the CEO leader of the church is a difficult one to shake off. So many people want to be spoon fed the faith, and so many pastors clamor to give the people what they want.

We don't wish to suggest that this man scratches itching ears, but rather, he seems to be content to partake in an unbiblical system because that is what history and tradition have handed down.
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Real revival versus the "show" - Faceborg conversation

Faceborg friend Elijah posted something, and as it happens, the conversation veered to the subject of what constitutes real revival:

Me: We seem to want to revive and/or reinforce old paradigms about the spirit realm, where people see demons and angels, spiritual warfare is about legality and territories, and spiritual things must look and sound exactly the same as they did in the 80s and 90s.

I have little patience for digging up the corpses of the revivals of decades ago. But for some reason we insist that getting slain in the spirit, or holy laughter, or whatever the previous evidence of the Holy Spirit's move was, that this is the only evidence of a move of God today.

*Dismounts soapbox*

Sorry about that.

I'm this old guy, but too often it seems like the younger crowd is entrenched in tradition while I'm pushing for what the Holy Spirit is doing now. Why?

Elijah: Don’t use a soap box! 🙌 The stage is yours. Come up to the place of honor: the seat is freely yours. What’s the Holy Spirit doing now?

Sunday Style and the Devil's Beat My Favorite Genre Is Loving Your Neighbor - Andrew Osenga

Found here. A thought-provking article.

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Here’s another post in my series on Why We Sing The Songs We Do On Sunday.

Today I want to talk about Style.

Cause you know I’ve got it.

I can safely say that very few American Christians have been to as many churches as I have.

I’m a born and raised church kid, sure, but I’ve also been traveling to different houses of worship as a musician for over 25 years. For the past decade I’ve been visiting even more as a teacher, mentor, or speaker.

I think I’ve pretty much seen it all: from the most charismatic to the most stoic, from suit and tie to board shorts, from a cathedral to an elementary school cafeteria.

Lay Musicians in the Church - Brittany Hurd

Found here. Our comments in bold.
-------------------------------

We are going to get nit-picky. We are sorry for this, but this author engages in all sorts of presumptions without explaining them. And it takes her several paragraphs to even get to the subject. Although when she finally does get there, she offer some good practical advice.

She will quote a handful of Scriptures in over 2200 words, but will only once provide the full reference (i.e., book, chapter and verse.) So it the reader wants to look up the verse, well that will take a bit of searching.

We do commend the author for not rigidly holding to her chosen worship tradition. We do not commend her for her vague language, irrelevancies, or her presumptions about her audience.

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Bad Worship Songs: Center - Bethel Music & Abbie Gamboa

From time to to we examine the lyrics of worship songs. Our desire is not to mock or humiliate, but rather to honestly examine content with a view to calling forth a better worship expression.

With the great volume and variety of worship music available, none of us should have to settle for bad worship songs. We should be able to select hundreds or even thousands of top notch songs very easily.

What makes a song a worship song? Is it enough to contain words like God or holy? How about vaguely spiritual sounding phrases? Should Jesus be mentioned?

We think an excellent worship song should contain the following elements:

• A direct expression of adoration (God, you are...)
• A progression of ideas that culminates in a coherent story
• A focus on God, not us
• Lyrics that do not create uncertainty or cause confusion
• A certain amount of profundity
• A singable, interesting melody
• Allusions to Scripture
• Doctrinal soundness
• Not excessively metaphorical
• Not excessively repetitive
• Jesus is not your boyfriend

It's worth noting the most worship songs contain at least something good. That is, there might be a musical idea or a lyric that has merit. Such is the case with this song, Center.

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Before you Decree and Declare - Kuza

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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We recently commented on another article by this author and found his teaching to be suspect. However, the below article contains a lot of good information. 

We usually consider the follies of cessationism in our blog, but less often we examine claims of errant charismatics when the situation warrants it.  Less often because large portions of the blogosphere are devoted to examining charismatic teachers and doctrines, so we don't feel the need to add to that. This is why we recently introduced a new label, "bad charisma."

We have never been comfortable with the charismatic "decree and declare" practice, as if we somehow have the ability to create reality with our words. This is what some charismatics believe, mostly based on a handful of verses:  

“...calling those things which are not, as though they were” (Rom 4:17)

This verse is not about us, it refers to what God does.

You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; and light will shine on your ways. Job 22:28 NASB

Eliphaz the Temanite spoke these words, not Job. We would regard any statements made by Job's interlocuters as suspect and not worthy of repeating as if they were true.

The tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 18:21

Most people who quote this verse neglect to quote the entire thing:

Pr. 18:21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

In Scripture, the fruit of the tongue is generally regarded as a dangerous and negative thing, and the damage caused by the tongue is much more emphasized than any benefit it might have:

James 3:5 Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.

The last verse we have seen mentioned is:

Matthew 18:18, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

The agreement of heaven is certainly a required part of this transaction. However, the unilateral decree/declaration we think is mistaken.

We therefore have little regard for those who would engage in this practice.

The author does a great job explaining this.

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Why 1 Timothy 2 Is A Universal Normative Guide - by Steven Wedgeworth

Found here. Our comments in bold.
---------------------

So many things irritate us regarding these people who are supposed to be Bible teachers. Today's author hits some of those buttons. 

This article clocks in at over 2100 words. But it's not 2100 words of explanation. Only a little more than 1400 words are actually the author's. 

Encumbering the text is information that properly belongs in the footnotes. On several occasions the author includes verbiage like "See Fee, 'Reflections on Church Order,' 146, 150–51." These insertions are awkward and break the flow of the thought. He does supply three actual footnotes, so he knows how to use them. There is no reason at all for this.

When we add these into the word count, we are now at 1900 words. 

In addition, the author quotes other Bible teachers and statements of faith. But only 21 words are from the Bible (from a single verse). Astonishingly, he never quotes the subject verse! 

We shall do so for the benefit of the reader:

1Ti. 2:12-13 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

Why are we counting words? Because we want to know what the author intends to teach so that we can evaluate his ideas, and we want to know where in the Bible these ideas are found. If he hides behind other people's work or unnecessary or undefined verbiage and doesn't explain or teach, he fails as a Bible teacher.

We will discover that the author gets a lot of things right about this verse, but right at the end he abandons all of his previous elucidation and without explanation simply jumps to the traditional viewpoint.

For the benefit of the reader, we will state our position, which has nothing to do with "complementarian" vs. "egalitarian." We believe that Paul wasn't discussing church order at all. He writes "a woman" not "women," and "a man" not "men." The Greek words are guné: a woman, wife, my lady, and anér: a male human being; a man, husband. So if Paul was actually talking about the marriage relationship and not church order, the subsequent appeal to Adam and Eve suddenly makes more sense.

Let's retranslate the verse:

1Ti. 2:12-13 I do not allow the wife to instruct the husband, neither to domineer over him; she is to be at rest and calm. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

We do not claim to be experts in the Greek, but we don't think that's necessary. Despite centuries of tradition, this small change fairly leaps out at us.

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