40:04 minutes (18.35 MB)
Sermon text: 1 Timothy 2:11-15 & Galatians 3:26-29
Today we are going to discuss a controversial topic, but one that is very important for us to address. The question that was placed in the sermon suggestion box was “why does the Evangelical Covenant Church ordain women?” That is a great question and one that I want to answer.
I want to say right off the bat, though, that there may be things that I say today that you disagree with and that is fine . . . some of the issues that we are going to discuss have been sources of disagreement for thousands of years. What I want us to be clear about, though, is that these issues do not arise because someone is reading the Bible and someone is not. Too often we are quick to say that the particular position that we adopt on a topic is “biblical” while the other side’s argument is “not biblical.” There are indeed debates where this is the case, but many debates happen within the church between two groups of people that are each honestly studying and wrestling with their Bibles, trying to understand what they teach.
As we discuss gender in the Bible, know that I am not claiming that one side is trying to follow the Bible and the other is not . . . all sides of the issues, at least within the church, are trying to understand what the biblical texts are telling us. I have my opinions, but disagreement is o.k. While the God we worship is perfect, we are not, and anyone that claims to have a perfect understanding of Him is probably in the deepest error.