Trying to defend his wife as the "Teaching Pastor" Saddleback's new pastor shows he doesn't understand the bible on Rick Warren's level.

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I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. - 1Timothy 2:12-14 (ESV)

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It is something to watch when the Charismatic Industrial Complex defends the brand at all costs. Charismania is a billion-dollar industry and the number one thing that is not tolerated is friendly fire, that is criticism from other sectors within the active church. We saw this recently when the Southern Baptist Convention expelled Saddleback Church because their new pastor assigned his wife to be the "Teaching Pastor" upon the exit of Rick Warren. Kudos to the SBC, who has enough wrong but should get credit for correctly standing their ground for the sanctity of scripture. Now it is not surprising that the apostate charismatic church cares little about scripture. They have their own model based upon generating money and the fact is that women can fleece the flock just as well as men, so there is no reason to not allow them to do so. The first defense was offered last week by Rick Warren himself, who claimed that he had to "repent" for preaching correctly that women should not serve in leadership capacities within the church. Wouldn't you know one of the few times Warren correctly handled the word of God and he feels like he has to repent for it! Not contented with Warren's weak defense, his replacement is out with his own defense today, linked above. Charisma News also supported this with an article from renowned false teacher on the subject, Eddie Hyatt. As usual, Hyatt crawls down various rabbit holes to distract from the key verses today and these are at the heart of every discussion of women in church leadership roles.

It is embarrassing to have to explain why we believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture. The bible NEVER changes. You can try to massage it, write poor translations of it, or play games with paraphrases but at the end of each day it still says what it says. What these verses say is plain and clear. There is no ambiguity about them. I do not permit! Period! God even tells us the reason so we would not get it confused and still we do. Why? Because people do not like it. Those that make so much money from the organized church will not allow cash cows to sit on the sidelines. Still others cannot stand up to their wives and assert what God said. Still others confuse the carnal world and the "advances for women" made during this past century and want the church to do likewise, never once consider that maybe God has the better plan. Maybe God knows the better way. So let us reason once more through the above linked defense offered up by Charisma News and Andy Word, Rick Warren's replacement.

"Andy Wood isn't about to apologize for Saddleback's Church stance on appointing women to positions of authority in his church. Wood, who took over as lead pastor at Saddleback last fall for founding pastor Rick Warren, says that, despite the fact his church was expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention in February for its decision to hire a female pastor"his wife, Stacie, as a teaching pastor"Saddleback will continue to stick to what God's Word has to say on the subject. In a recent video on the church's YouTube channel, Wood pointed out several Scriptures in God's Word that proved that women indeed were allowed to take on such positions in the church." - Charisma News

Of course, Wood is not going to apologize. He has a pretty good gig going. Lead pastor at one of the largest churches in America and can bring a secondary salary into his house by naming his wife the "teaching pastor." There are God-ordained roles for all of us in every situation. The problem is many men have abdicated their responsibilities to their wives. Many do not like the patriarchal structure not because of the church but because that is how it is in society at large. While the past 50 years have seen role busting expansion in culture the church is not supposed to simply follow suit.

Section 6 of the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptism and Faith Message disagrees with Saddleback's decision and discusses the role of the church, which reads: "While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture." Warren said he once held that belief for many years, but three years ago, he found the need to repent of those beliefs, citing three passages of Scripture to back up his turnaround.

One Scripture that often comes up in this discussion of women serving as pastors in the church is 1 Timothy 2:12, in which the apostle Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to usurp authority over a man, but to be silent. Wood says the spostle Paul did not lead the local church in that manner, and says it's important for believers to understand the concept of spiritual offices and spiritual gifts found in the New Testament.

"' - Charisma News

This is usually the first play for those desperate to change what the word of God says. Knowing they cannot defend the indefensible scriptures found here in 1Timothy and confirmed in one of the letters to the Corinthians, Wood and Warren instead find trojan horses and back doors to get around the word. The first such is the notion that Paul did not lead as these verses reflect and therefore we must somehow ignore or dismiss the key verses. Is that the way that hermeneutics is supposed to work? We have a clear and directive scripture but we ignore that in favor of our personal understanding of a concept found elsewhere in the bible? That is beyond reckless.

"When it comes to spiritual gifts, there is a myriad list that you see showing up through the New Testament. In particular, there were five spiritual gifts that the apostle Paul talks about in the book of Ephesians that are equipping gifts," Wood says. "Paul is speaking in chapter 4, verse 11 when he says 'Christ gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers; He gave them to equip His people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.' ... - Charisma News

What Wood is trying to do here is move the goalposts. Faced with directive and definitive scriptures as above, he instead wants to make this a discussion on spiritual gifts, which has a lower bar to meet, and then reapply it back to church leadership. The bible does not work that way beloved. No one is arguing that women cannot be prophets or evangelists. Depending on the situation, teaching is not ruled out. One can easily argue that this subject is presented as being more flexible but that does to change the clear and directive scriptures above.

'"You see it through the book of Acts. The question to wrestle through is in the New Testament is, were there both men and women who had the apostleship gift, the pastoral gift, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. Undoubtedly, when you study the New Testament, almost every theologian would argue yes, there are men who are apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. The question that is oftentimes in controversy is, do women have those spiritual gifts or are they commissioned by God to be functioning in those particular areas of the local church." - Charisma News

The point of switching the focus off of definitive scriptures onto a more malleable subject is the controversy. The point is the confusion. The point made here is correct however. One might feel called or even possess the ability of the office or task but that does not mean they have been commissioned to do so. The key verses assure us they have not been called to teach or preach with authority over men within the church. Now Wood switches to the tired old arguments that this woman or that one did something so we can throw away the key scriptures. He will remain however, wrong.

"What we would say to that is all throughout the New Testament, both in Paul's teaching and in Jesus' teaching, we see apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. In Romans 16:7, there is a woman by the name of Junia who was commissioned as an apostle. In fact, Paul said she was known as an apostle. When it comes to prophets, we see Phillip, in Acts chapter 2, he had four daughters who were prophets. When it comes to evangelists, In John chapter 20 verses 16 through 18, the first evangelists after the Resurrection were women. When it comes to shepherds, in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 19, we see very clearly that Aquilla and Priscilla were shepherds that were in a local church and they were shepherding people. When it comes to teachers, in Romans Chapter 16 verse 1 and 2 in particular, Paul commends a woman by the name of Phoebe as a teacher." - Charisma News

Let's go through these one by one because it is important to see the lengths people will go to in order to be disobedient to God's Word. First let's address the purposeful muddying of the waters. No one ever said women could not be prophets or evangelists, so the discussion of Phillip's daughters is not needed. The example of John 20 is an absurdity used by those defending women in leadership. This is the story of the women going to prepare the body for burial after the crucifixion. Having not found the body, Christ appeared to them and instructed them to let the others know and that He would appear to them later. To pretend this is evangelism is ridiculous. They were not the first carriers of the gospel either. Just stop. That said, there is no prohibition against women serving as evangelists. Now, let us deal with some of the more deceptive examples provided:

Junia - for starters. There is some scholarly confusion if the name is Junia or Junias, meaning this person could actually have been a male. For the purposes of this conversation, it does not matter since they were never an apostle, which is the crux of the argument being presented. Here is the verse in question:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. -- Romans 16: 7 (ESV)

Those who want the Bible to say something it does not prefer the translations that say these two individuals were "outstanding among the apostles." Biblical scholars who are experts in syntax and grammar however agree that the ESV translation above is probably to most accurate. When other translations state that they were "outstanding" it simply meant that they would "stand out" to the apostles. So do not get this twisted. Junias or Junia was KNOWN TO the apostles, not known as an apostle. It is also of interesting note that Paul uses the male collective term kinsmen to describe both.

Priscilla -- in Romans 16 she is referred to by Paul as a fellow worker in Christ. What Wood is probably considering is that verse 19 refers to a "church in their house." That is fine. Let us assume that they did indeed hold services in their house. The address from Paul in Romans was to Aquila and Priscilla. That's it. Now I know in modern times this means they are even partners and thus both pastors but not so in the days of Jesus. I am sure Priscilla's help was indispensable to Aquila but Aquila remains the "pastor."

Phoebe -- Wood refers to Phoebe as a teacher and that Paul commended her as such. To say this is a leap is an understatement. The word used in these verses is essentially "help." Phoebe had been a tremendous help to many, including Paul. Not a teacher at the church. She may have been involved in many charitable acts as well. There is zero scriptural support that she was a teacher or leader in the church. John MacArthur wrote about Phoebe once and reminds us that the word "servant" used here is translated "diakonos "; which is where we get the word deacon. This is probably where Wood believes she was a teacher, but the problem is prior to church structure being set up, as in the case of the writing of this letter, the word simply meant servant. These were valuable people to the Apostle Paul but not the loftier roles that Wood, Warren and their ilk would like them to rise to. Mercifully, this article ends:

'Wood says it is important for believers to recognize that, from a descriptive angle in the New Testament, it shows women in roles of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher.

Wood said that's clear throughout the Bible that God intended to have two genders and that while today's mainstream culture focuses on "gender transitions," he says Saddleback is not "caving to the culture." "We're trying to get back to God's design," Wood says. "What did God intend when you go to Genesis and you see God making Adam and Eve? What was God's intention?" he asked. "There's a danger in this conversation with what is called a trajectory hermeneutic. A trajectory hermeneutic says, 'Well, Jesus got the ball down the field this far, and now culture's taken things further, and we're trying to catch up to culture. We are not trying to catch up to culture in this conversation."' - Charisma News

Wow, that is a new argument and very deceitful. No one is arguing that we need to catch up to culture and if anything, this is what Freud referred to as projection. The women in leadership crowd are the ones chasing culture. It is modern culture that says there are no norms or roles. It is modern culture that says women can and should aspire to everything man does and anything short of that is discriminatory. Saddleback is not caving to culture? Are you kidding me? From the moment Rick Warren polled the neighborhood to decide church culture he has caved. The entire point of the purpose driven church is to cave to the world so you can be relevant to them. Adam and Eve? The key verse is completely lost on Mr. Wood. It was Eve that sinned, which is why God puts the prohibition on women in leadership positions over men in His church. If you truly want to "get back to God's design" then you would obey the key verses and stop looking for cultural arguments to ignore them. Of course, that would require you to confront your wife and maybe tell her to stand down.

Reverend Anthony Wade - March 21, 2023

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.