This presentation marks the conclusion of Pr. Mike Lambert’s six part series especially focusing on women’s ordination and church unity. In this conclusion, Lambert summarizes and focuses on the larger issues. Twelve action-steps are offered, including a call about the proposed NPUC special constituency meeting” and also about women elders. Pr. Lambert also deals with the argument that “the church crossed this theological bridge long ago and cannot now turn back.”
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CAP authors Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Gender General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Headship Insubordination Male-sex specific roles Mike Lambert Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Seventh-day Adventist Church The larger issues Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination
12 replies on “A gender agenda, part 6”
This presentation was simply excellent. Thank God for our CAP who are standing firm on the platform of biblical truth. Pastor Lambert’s presentation lays out the issues clearly and concisely based on the rock of God’s word. May God help us all to humble ourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God…
This guy is bogus.
This pastor is the furthest thing from bogus I have ever witnessed. He is so brave, humble and loving. He is a TRUE rep for Christ, which is what Paul describes he should be from the Holy Spirit inspired Bible. He is pastoring and shepherding his flock with the true Word from God. Trust and Obey should be our constant meditation in this time of trouble. The real spirit behind this rebellious movement will come to light at the 2015 GC session. Satan so oversteped himself with the actions that he had cettain unions take – that a child could easily see the repeat of his LIES from Eden. EGW was only a pastor in the sense that ALL women could be – helping to shepard the lost back to God. One does NOT have to be ordained to fill this role – only leadership roles in the church must be ordained men. This is because they represent Christ on this planet and a women cannot be a rep for Christ’s BRIDE, simply because we are the wrong gender for this role. When Christ thru God created male & female at ceation, he created they them in the image of God & His relationship – that of Christ’s willing submission to God & therefore woman’s submission to the man, Adam. This is obviously part of the great mystery that Paul refers to. This creates a ‘serving’ attitude in us enabling us to be ‘other’ cntered instead of ‘self’ centered. All apostasy is the result of selfishness – our will (want) instead of trusting and obeying God. Wife is submissive to husband, husband to Christ, and Christ to God. It is such a beautiful and perfect plan – but sin filled man with a heart full of pride of self and deceit is unable to follow this plan unless they become ONE with Christ by the filling of His Spirit.
. If God has given the gift of Spirit leadership to a woman, like EGW who served more as a pastor, who are we to reject it on account of gender? Does not Joel predict the the Spirit will come upon both men and women? Would you set aside Philip’s Spirit led daughters because of gender? Ordination if just an acknowledgment that the person has demonstrated gifts for ministry, nothing more (also receive a higher wage).
Jesus did commission women to be the first missionaries, in sending them to tell the male disciples he had risen. The HS included women in the same gifts at Pentecost as men, a heavenly sign of ordination. These acts point to the way heaven views these issues.
The early church was governed and modeled by the Roman Empire, which was hierarchical and patriarchal. This led to the establishment of the papacy. Tertullian (160-225) in his Exhortation to Chastity, “It is the authority of the Church that instituted the distinction between clergy and laity. “
Paul was influenced by his culture just as we are. Romans regarded women’s bodies to be feeble, brains deficient and emotions unstable and not able to make rational decisions. At the time of Paul, Roman men would agree with this. In Greece and Rome, men were a regarded as a higher development then women. In the family the oldest male ruled, they had the right to punish and banish. Never could a Roman or Greek woman ever escape male domination.
Amazing logic here. If God has “ordained” women in the past, please give me a scripture that shows the occasion, the prophet or Apostle who conducted the service, the location of the church or office they held, what a tremendous help it was to the growth of the church and why it took us so long and a nudge from global feminism to discover this critical biblical truth and development? Oh and tell me because I really would appreciate it the tremendous benefit this will be to the finishing of the work. Please bear in mind we have very little time left. Why did God overlook such an important matter and especially how on earth could Ellen G. Whte have overlooked it, I mean we have operated for over a century with this blind spot? As for the Greeks and the Romans writing the Bible for Paul in his head, the Holy Spirit must really be very subjective, I mean subject to Roman and Greek influences and therefore very “irresponsible” in pandering to their “chauvinism” over such a very critical matter! And to think He has done this for millennia all over the Old Testament. To follow this logic one would end up with a very unfair and oppressive collusion on the part of God with this global and cultural “injustice” over millennia. Now “he” has had a change of mind and is moving on “progressive” forces in “all religions and churches” to right this wrong. This issue obviously now overshadows all others and must be very important to “him”. I cannot help but think that a very small vocal and well heeled and position minority is hijacking the power system if the church and completely redirecting it. The selfish nature of the spirit that drives this matter is glaring. | 300 limit
Male Domination! This is about Female Emancipation then? Huh. Frank, please do not seek to use deduction and extrapolation to create policy. If we use scripture like that we will wind up throwing it away as useless. What we are asking for is a simple example or instruction to ordain women from God Himself. with a clear occasion, officers (prophets or priests), place and procedure. We need female priests, Bishops, Elders and Deacons and preferably a Bible chapter and verse. The whole idea here is not that God has given the church a new instruction on how to administer His cause but that the church is being compelled by a small vocal strategically positioned and well financed minority who intend to coopt Adventism into world liberalism. This will not make us better at our God given task, just that the world will accept us as part of its forward movement to some uniformity. What distresses me is the money, time and the energy of God’s people worldwide this whole thing will waste We would be better served to address the sorry state of church leadership, the escalating changes in the world that are hampering our work, the money we need for Bibles and Bible and Spirit of Prophecy Translations, the impending global Crisis and how they will affect our global work, our collapsing mission schools and hospitals in a recessionary world. We have far more important matters to discuss than gender equality. Simply put, the world has its issues. We have ours and rectifying social injustices is not our business. Our business is a clear message of present truth. Women and their “emancipation” from their gender is not one of them because the world has not even agreed on what THAT means. To follow the world to who knows where is insanity.
Whatever Influence Roman and Greek culture had on Paul cannot safely be used as an argument for his position on women as presented in scripture for the simple reason that Gender is NEVER a biblical issue. The concept of sin as presented by God, the Prophets and Apostle does not address gender inequality or difference in roles as a sin and righteousness issue. There is no general meeting in scripture at which this matter was EVER discussed. Must constitute a terrible oversight on God’s part and who dares to accuse God of ANY oversight. Someone has really lost their marbles here.
We have a far more important matter to discuss: The Finances of the Work. How are we going to finance the work in Africa for example with its diminishing economies, debt and falling currencies and conflicts? What about the training of teachers and pastors for increasing populations in diminishing economies and the necessary integration of cultures to forestall the paralysis created by tribalism and nationalism: the sorry state of third world leadership across the board. Do we need to send missionaries from America and all over the world to create a healthy mix for our people to raise them above the pettiness of world politics. How do we get our message out quickly and increase its reach? Do we need to revisit what we are telling the world so that we can be concise and clear? When the electricity fails and it will, will we be better served by ink on paper rather than screens and bytes? Do we need more Phds and MAs or our BAs will do and save us a lot of money and pastoral down time especially for the third world? Do we need more chiefs or more Indians? How is all this translating into growth? Do we need more reach or more numbers or both? Where should our money and effort really grow? What is affecting our growth in the NAD and Europe etc.(Western World). What can we do to ensure more people hear what God is saying to our times and what is He saying?
The real question is the message of the world is CHANGE. Should we change? We have changed our logo for reasons not advanced. We have proceeded to ordain women as elders. Why are we balking at this? Because we are scared, that is why. We are scared at what our “progressive” stances of the past now mean, a clean break with our past of purist integrity to scripture. Well, why do we not do the honest thing: admit we had no basis for female ordination of female elders and maintain a sound exegesis?
If it does turn out that progressive revelation IS NOT the same thing as progressive liberalism and if it does turn out that some of our leaders in North America no longer subscribe to Sola Scriptura, would it not be the responsible thing to put a motion to the floor to relieve the sponsors of these worldly agendas of their duties and spare the church these recurrent expensive circuses? We may lose some people but we will not lose our members in the confusion these side issues create. What we will save is our focus and function. It is not true that we will lose the whole North American Division but we will lose division if these divisive operatives of the world were to leave and addressing this matter Biblically and voting Biblically does just that. The problem was we cowardly avoided cropping divisive leadership and issues in the past. We must not make that mistake at this GC meeting. We must make it clear leaders who create division by bringing divisive and nonsensical issues risk removal from office and recommendations will be made to that effect.
All North American DIvision church members who want to retain our position on scriptural integrity should pay particular attention to the persons they send to the GC as delegates. These persons must represent their churches faithfully by presenting the accurate sentiment of their church whatever their own sentiments may be. Maybe we should all write to the GC on our official stationery making sure that the GC leaders understand that the document we send them is the official position of that particular congregation. Since they have written to us we should have the decency to respond officially. This is not a matter to be weak on because once we allow the politicians (control masters) and liberal tacticians among us to sneak their agenda past the whole church on this matter, we will wake up with a church that we cannot recognize and positions we cannot defend in any court. If scripture is to stand as our only argument in the near future it must stand now amongst ourselves.`We must now all stand as one and resist the Ahabs and Jezebels among us. Naboth’s vineyard is not for sale. It is inheritance. Rather be dead than apostate and treasonous.