Category: Ministry of Women

In The Prophecy of Jeremiah (New York: Revell, 1931), G. Campbell Morgan demonstrated how a Bible teacher, the foremost Evangelical expositor of his generation, and speaking over sixty years ago, handled a text relating to the role of women in Christian service.

‘The first responsibility of womanhood is that women should discover their personal rights in God, should realize that they bear to God a relationship which man does not affect, nor can; that they have a right of access to God, for the realization of that which they are in themselves, without the interference of man in any way.’

I wish, nearly 80 years on, women and men in our churches could approach the issue with the same bold grasp of the key Gospel principles of freedom and grown-upness in Christ. And that women in our Scottish churches were allowed to ‘realise that which they are in themselves before God’, and to share fully and frutifully in all the ministry and ministries of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The passage is on pages 273-4. It was brought to my attention by my friend Kate Durie years ago….and it confirmed Campbell Morgan in my personal pantheon of Evangelicalism’s most attractive and biblically articulate writers.

I was sad to hear of the death of Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, on Thursday 14 June. A gentle and honest tribute can be found here at CNN. Her funeral service was held today following yesterday’s thanksgiving service. In reviewing his own life work Billy Graham was convinced that Ruth was an essential source of courage, support and organising skill, in the background mostly. May she rest in the peace of Christ, and may they, in due course, rediscover the joy and love God gave them, in the presence of the God they have served together for over 65 years. Well done, good and  faithful servants.

I’ve added a new name to the list of blogs I visit regularly. Scott McKnight is a NT scholar, an evangelical who is also a thoughtful enthusiast for the concerns about the mission of the church as expressed in emergent circles. I’ve read his blog almost since it started two years ago. He is passionate about a number of things I care a lot about. When he writes he thinks before he blogs! His track record as a scholar, pastor and thoroughly fair minded evangelical make him educational fun.

So, I’ve decided to link him here because his blog is a good resource for some of the important debates going on in the church, particularly the evangelical wing. His categories sidebar gives easy acsess to major themes in his posts. For example his comments on recent debates on atonement are rooted in deep study – he’s recently published a major academic study, Jesus and His Death.

His interactive conversation about Emerging Movement is sympathetic but not uncritical – in fact it’s one of the most balanced responses I know – and because it’s an ongoing conversation, how emergent is that! There’s a whole sidebar on Emerging Movement.

But for me one of the most important areas where McKnight is required reading is Women in Ministry (57 posts so far, some of them substantial contributions to the debate – see his sidebar). McKnight adopts an egalitarian position – which means he affirms the place of women in all forms of ministry, and sees gender rendered irrelevant by a gospel which affirms equality before God. The reason I think Mcknight is an important voice in any debate about women and ministry is because he argues from biblical evidence, and with a care to understand what the Bible means as well as what it says.

I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of weary (at times to the point of being rude!) of those who think there are only two positions – those who affirm the ministry of women (egalitarians) and those who adopt the biblical position (complementarians). Excuse me – I’m biblical in my Christian discipleship too! I affirm the ministry of women as a position congruent with Scripture, consistent with the Gospel of Christ and with a life lived following after Him, and as a rich indispensable Spirit endowed gift to the church. The issue isn’t one that divides into those who adopt the "biblical" position and those who don’t. An argument isn’t right because we label it biblical, and label others’ position unbiblical because they disagree with our interpretation. The issue for me, as a Baptist Christian, is one of being obedient to the call of Christ to follow Him, as the decisive, living and personal authority in our lives, and to seek the mind of Christ through Scripture prayed, studied, heard and interpeted within the community which gathers in His name.