Note: The following is a response to a question submitted in conjunction with a sermon I preached on 9/20/15 at SonRise Christian Church, Summerville, SC.
Question: My question to today’s question is, if women can’t be leaders or preachers or lead a church is Joyce Meyers wrong? What’s the difference between a Children’s Sunday school teacher and a preacher?
Answer: Great question! The New Testament teaches that women are to teach other women (Titus 2:3-4), teach children (2 Timothy 1 :3-5), evangelize and disciple (Acts 18:24-28), and serve in the life of the church body (1 Cor 12). However, as far as authority (i.e. Oversight and leadership) and teaching the Bible in the corporate body of the church 1 Timothy 2:12-15 makes it clear that this role is to be done by men. Therefore, I humbly disagree with our sister Joyce Myers. I feel that if she is taking on a role as pastor-teacher then she is ignoring the clear point of 1 Timothy 2:12-15. Furthermore, those who teach children seem not to be in violation of 1 Timothy 2 because they are not taking on the role as the pastor-teacher of a local church assembly.
It is admittedly a touchy subject and the stance that I take confessedly goes against the cultural norm. However, the Bible must take precedent over our cultural inclinations. Thanks so much for your willingness to dig deeper and for being a great Berean! Here is a fantastic resource to further your study: http://cbmw.org/topics/complementarianism/50-crucial-questions/
The following is a follow-up question along with my answer:
Question: Thank you Pastor Will. I guess I am still a bit confused with my Joyce Meyers question. Not because I think your wrong, the word clearly says that. I just don’t see how he could deny her heaven due to not following the word. She has saved so many souls. But I wonder by saving so many souls and being she is doing it wrong is she still saving them or leading them to damnation. Surely not right? I know someone that will be knocking on suicides door but listens to Joyce and can be routed in another direction. She gets peace from her sermons and able to put things back in perspective. I hope God has compassion on her (Joyce). Thanks for your never ending patience and love for me.
Answer: Those are compelling questions, and ones that I admittedly struggle with myself. The basic foundation of your thoughts revolve around the question of how someone so successful and influential in communicating God’s truth could miss such a straight-forward passage of scripture. I must admit, I am boggled by it as well 🙂 That moves us into an even more difficult situation–that is, how is it that all of us can read the same Bible and come up with completely different answers and beliefs? Again, not an easy question to resolve. My humble response would be as follows:
First, while I believe that Joyce Myers is incorrect in her application and interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12-15, I don’t believe that necessitates the basic message of the Gospel that results in people receiving Christ as Lord. God can, and does use miss-guided messengers(like myself at times I’m sure) to reach effectively people with the basic message of the Gospel. A great case study of this in the Bible is Philippians 1:15-18 in which Paul distinguishes between the “Motive” of the speaker and the Result of the “message” given. In other words some can even preach the Gospel with false motives and it still do the job of convicting the lost listener!
Secondly, as to how so many devoted Bible-believers can disagree I propose a few thoughts: First, I think all Bible-believing Christians agree on the “essentials” of the Gospel–The “Bulls-eye” points. That is, what we believe about salvation, Jesus deity, God, The Work of the cross, the resurrection, and the fact that Christ will definitely come again.
However, on the secondary issues (for example women preaching) there are definitely disagreements. I think in light of this we must avoid two extremes.
On the one hand, some respond with subjective relativism. That is, there is no way we can come to the ultimate truth and thus every person’s individual interpretation is fine, so long as we don’t subject anyone else to hold our position. This is dangerous however, to those who believe in the inerrant word of God. We believe that when God wrote the Bible he didn’t mean to communicate 2, 3, or a thousand different ideas, but one. Therefore, the Bible has one interpretation and our job as Bible students is to find out what that is.
On the other hand, there are some who go to the opposite extreme and believe that if you don’t adhere to every belief on every verse of the Bible as they do, then your completely wrong and sinful! This is completely unnecessary however. While we do need to agree on the essentials, we also need to have room to lovingly dialogue about our differences.
So while I think Joyce Myers teaches some important issues incorrectly I would never advocate her as sinful or unsaved or the like. I do feel compelled to caution others when there are areas of biblical teaching that are off base in my view of Scripture. But these need to be done in a spirit of grace, love and patience. In conclusion I think it is helpful to follow the old adage: “in essentials unity, in opinions liberty, in all things love.”
Love ya, keep up the growth!
From Genesis to the Maps 