[0:00]
Can women lead mixed Bible studies? In my view, that's one of those areas where a certain amount of difference of opinion may prevail from church to church committed to complementarianism. When I was in pastoral ministry myself, what I did in such cases,

[0:30]
was try to get husband-wife compliments working together. I can remember one couple, for example. She had a master's degree in theology, a pretty sharp mind. She also had a bit of an acidic tongue. And her husband didn't know as much, but was much more gentle and pastoral. And I tried to coach them on the side to run some of these house groups together in a way that played to one another's strength. So I think there are sometimes ways of doing these things without…

[1:00]
without teasing things out. I'm a little nervous about articles like one that was written by a friend of mine. The title was 16 things that women may do and 17 things that they may not do. I mean, I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to take the principle and apply it to life. Do you know? I mean, that surely is a good thing to do. And if he wants to do with that in the context of his own local church, God bless you. I'm not sure I want to go to that church, but God bless you. But on the other hand,

[1:30]
I'm really reluctant to say what I would do or not do exactly in all of these cases because there can be other determining factors around. And I'm nervous about turning this merely into a set of prescripts. Well, Don Carson says that what this means is, no, she may not. It depends. But what I do not want to duck is the principle of the complementarian structure.

[2:00]
Oh, yeah, good question. This question is not meant to be rude or funny. Boy, that's got my attention right away, doesn't. I know culturally the question sounds politically incorrect. But where do female authors fit in teaching men, e.g. Claire Smith. May the Lord produce a lot more Claire Smith. In other words, again, the notion of complemented, complementarianism is not, she mustn't say anything under any circumstances to anybody about

[2:34]
anything to do with the gospel. You know, that's not the issue. Clearly, Paul can speak of women who have served with him and this sort of thing. No, no, no, I tried to define things pretty tightly. The church recognized teaching authority over men. I don't say she can't teach any man under any circumstance. It's just not the case. Did you see? There's a structural question of authority, the magisterial office, as it's called, within the church. So, I'm all for the multiplication of Claire Smith's.

[3:06]
These things are all recorded. She'll probably hear this. But I've had a long friendship with Rob and Claire, and I hold both of them in high esteem. Oh, this is a good question for clarification. When you disagreed with the approach of using God is helper too to suggest that women are not functionally inferior, are you saying that women are functionally inferior? Are you saying that women are functionally inferior. I don't like the word inferior, although it's the word that I use. You

[3:36]
just hard to find a right word. One of the reasons why complementarianism, the word, is used so much today in these debates, is because what you're trying to get across is you're called to two slightly different roles and the roles complement one another. So there is a complementarianism. But that complementarianism is viewed as bringing two people together in slightly different roles. And in the authority structure of the family, of the home, one is the head and the other submits.

[4:15]
Now, is the head with all the self-sacrificing life of, love of Christ for the church, but still Christ remains the head of the church. And in that sense, and in that sense, alone, the church submits to Christ and is, so far as the authority structure is concerned, inferior. That doesn't mean ontologically inferior or anything like that. So that was the context in which I was talking about inferior. The helper is helping the other one in a differentiation

[4:47]
of roles that cannot be overcome by saying that sometimes the word helper is, can actually have God himself as the referent. That's all it's trying to say. It is not trying to say that it is, there is an ontological inferiority or that the helping function is at distinctively and intrinsically inferior role. It's not saying any of those kinds of things. It's saying that in an authority structure, then one has more authority than the other one. In other words, there's a superior and an

[5:20]
inferior along that axis itself. Those might not be the best words, because I want to preserve complementarianism as the big flag here rather than something else. ! Just to help people out, I know what you're saying when you say ontological, can you just say that a different way, because that might be a key word for people to understand. Ontological comes from the Greek word own, which has to do with being.

[5:50]
Ontological really means at the level of being. So if there is an ontological, inferior, or equality, then you're saying at the level of their very being, they're either, whatever the thing is. They're, ontologically, at the level of their being, they're equal, or ontologically, one is inferior or superior. But that's not what anybody's talking about in this debate. It's about function, a distinctive function. And even at the functional level, inferiority or superiority doesn't quite cut it when you're talking about two functions being mutually complementary.

[6:23]
Do you, do you see? But at the level, at the level, level of the authority structure, then in most English usage, except that it's not very acceptable today because everybody's trying to be PC, then the one who has more authority is said to be superior, the one who has less authority is said to be inferior on that axis. But that does not mean an intrinsic inferiority at the level of function overall or at the level of ontology overall, the level of being. It's really helpful, thank you. He didn't know it himself. He just wanted me to explain it. It's true. I was just kind of covering my ignorance.

[6:56]
Thanks. Is there another question there that you like, or should I take one from the floor? Oh. How important is the historicity of Adam and Eve to the theological justification of complementarianism? Fairly. But the historicity of Adam and Eve, it seems to me, is we've been having some long discussions in some circles.

[7:26]
elsewhere. The history of Adam and Eve is, I think, essential to make sense of Christ's headship over the new humanity. That is more central yet and becomes finally non-negotiable. Now, I know what some geneticists are arguing, that the genetic evidence, they say, shows that human beings descended from a pool of several thousand, but now there's some geneticists who have argued back that that's just not the case.

[7:56]
too. So the literature is becoming quite complex on that domain. In my view, there is a fair bit of room for flexibility and all kinds of things in Genesis 1 to 11, but there are a couple of things that are non-negotiable. That is, human beings have descended from one pair, and there is a space-time historic fall. I don't see how you can make sense of the rest of the Bible without seeing those two things. Now, within that framework, Adam and Eve being of relevance to complementarianism is a relatively minor issue compared with those. But still, it's there.

[8:26]
like the approach of Francis Schaefer on many of these subjects in a book that's long out of print, probably, as far as I know, I haven't seen it for quite a while. It was published in the late 60s called Genesis in Space and Time. If you haven't read it, sell your shirt, get it, borrow it, download it on Kindle, whatever you do, Genesis and Space and Time, where he goes through the first 11 chapters of Genesis and asks just one question. What is the least that these chapters must be saying for the Bible, the rest of the Bible, the rest of the Bible, and to be coherent and true. Now that's not saying everything that those chapters say,

[9:03]
but it is asking the right question. What's the least that those chapters must be saying for the rest of the Bible to make sense? And I think that is sometimes a place to start in discussions when you're in university evangelism and that sort of thing. There are lots more that I could pick up here, but if you're in university evangelism and that sort of thing. ! There are lots more that I could pick up here. there's some that want to pick up some from the floor. If you can tell us your name and your question, that'd be great.

[9:33]
Yeah, good. Her name's Jono. Just trying to bring together two things. So from this morning, you talk about the incredible unity that Christians have together, and then some of the stuff you've talked about tonight. How should Christians who hold these things to be true and so on? How should Christians relate to other Christians who it seems, are Christians and so we share this incredible unity, but we may differ on some big things such as complementarianism or inerency of scripture or big things,

[10:07]
but still things where I'd say, I'm probably still talking to a Christian, who's my brother. So how does that work in, how should it work in, say, Geneva? How should it work in the way we relate to churches around us in sharing platforms, things like that? Yeah. That's a very important question. brother. And I had lots of notes on the whole thing, and I thought, I don't have to bring this up in my talk, because somebody's going to bring it up in Q&A. So thank you.

[10:40]
Let me give the easy part of the answer first. It's one thing to say that somebody or other is a brother or sister in Christ and to embrace him as a brother and sister in Christ. It's another thing. It's another to say that he or she can be part of a local church which has defined views on, let's say, baptism or the sovereignty of God or reformed theology versus Armenian theology or something like that, so that there are many, many Armenians who will view Calvinists as brothers in Christ

[11:12]
and the reverse. But that doesn't mean that they necessarily think that the Bible is with the other party on church order. And the same is true when you, when you, when, you push further. If somebody is in the church, who disagrees with you on some important issues, you might accept him or her as a brother in Christ, but not allow him in the teaching office. And occasionally, in a teaching office, but in a teaching office that's only restricted,

[11:45]
you may teach on this topic or that topic, but not on this topic. You haven't got yourself sorted out yet. And I would argue that that sort of differentiation is already found in the New Testament. So Paul writing to the Philippians, for example, in chapter three, he says, and if you disagree on these, then God will show you this too. He will reveal these things to you in due course. He recognizes that there are stages of growth. So to say that somebody is a brother or sister in Christ does not automatically mean that that person should be given leadership role in the church or a public

[12:16]
voice for teaching or preaching or whatever. Now, when you come to institutional structures, like Geneva push. Clearly, one of the things that Geneva is doing is working with a variety of churches that hold different views on baptism and on church structure and so on. It isn't close enough to their center to fight over these things. On the other hand, Geneva so far has not been really,

[12:49]
really tightly in bed with, let's say, the assemblies of God. There are some demarcations explicit or implicit about second blessing theology, in my view, for good reason. But that does not mean that we think that everybody who does buy into second blessing theology is not a Christian. It just means that when you start planting something toward the future, you realize that there are entailments down the road if you do that kind of thing, and it may actually weaken your ministry. So, you see, I mean, we heard tonight some of the guys that we're talking who were who were, who were,

[13:24]
in Geneva from the beginning, we're talking about, they raised questions along the lines of, if we do more of this together, can we do it faster and better? And the assumption is by doing it better, it'll be more fruitful. But doing it together, it'll be more fruitful. But then that notion of doing it together can become so big that you try to have a boundary bounded set, which is what we were talking about last night, that is so broad that you can get as many people as possible into it, all the way out to people. You're not even quite sure that they're saved, but they're sort of self-reased.

[13:54]
confessed evangelicals and they're in at some level or in it. Because the more we do together, then the stronger will be. And I want to say both historically and pragmatically, that doesn't make a lot of sense. There are some things that we do better together, but endless bigness toward an even bigger togetherness does not always produce greater efficiencies. It might actually mean we develop greater bureaucracies. And we, and we, and we, and we,

[14:24]
we have structures so large that we start moving in different directions. And it means there's certain things you can't talk about anymore because you'll offend somebody else who has a different point of view. And you're producing divisiveness for all kinds of reasons. So the conclusion is often a matter of prudential wisdom. That is where you draw lines in order to be maximally effective to do the kind of ministry that you have in mind. And I want to argue that granted the trends in our culture and granted the pressures amongst us I think myself, one of the lines that really does need to be drawn is in favor, in defense of, happily, happily, without malice, without condescension, without bitterness or mischief.

[15:10]
One of the lines that has to be drawn is to protect complementarianism. But having said that, I freely acknowledge that there's not, that's not grounded on a single biblical text. It's grounded on a judgment call about how important this stream of thought is in scripture to the very structure of what the gospel is and to what is needed in our society and culture, which is falling apart on so many fronts, and to building for the future, and so on, so on, so on. I started to say earlier something about the feminization of the church and then I got distracted,

[15:41]
and I didn't get back to it. But let me say something a bit more about that. In North America, IBCF, which is the American version of IFES, IVCF, has, it's pretty regionalized, but in many of its regions, it's pushing very hard now to have complete egalitarianism in all of the, in all of the university chapters. And what I've observed increasingly is that you get more, this is going to sound so un-PC,

[16:23]
Forgive me, but I'm going to say it in any case. You get so much feminization going on that you tend to get more and more and more, I don't want to call it, but sentimentalism, and sentimentalism in the singing, in the presentation, and so on, and what begins to fall away are men. The least evangelized demographic group in American universities today,

[16:53]
in a varsity circles is white males. The Asians have their own groups. They're doing not too badly. Thank you. A wee note of triumphalism there. Repent. But at the same time, but at the same time, there are not many guys going after football hunks. You know what I mean? And to go after football hunks, you need some.

[17:23]
Men who love Jesus. And sometimes unwittingly, the feminization of the church actually begins to work after a while against robust evangelism of men, which then multiplies the problem in the local church where the leadership really is. So I think that there are social cultural entailments that can turn out and bite you too on this one. And so it becomes after a while a prudential judgment about, is this important enough to draw a line? I say, yeah, with all due respect. Yes.

[17:53]
I think so. If somebody takes a contrary view, I'm not going to say, oh, well, they're not brothers or they're not really Christians. There's no context in which I can work with them. There are lots of contexts in which I can work with them. But a church planting organization where you're trying to establish the direction of something for the future, I don't think so.

[18:23]
be good. Yeah, good. I think it's very helpful. It's great that we heard the question that you were hoping for, so that's excellent. There's a question from the floor asking to explain the very tight definition that you've given, which is teaching with authority. So can you give a little bit more explanatory space to that just to help us understand exactly where that might sit for us? Is that right? What I said, it was not teaching with authority. What I said was the church recognized teaching authority over men. That is just to do.

[18:53]
say, there are clearly instances in the New Testament where a Priscilla and an Aquila, and interestingly enough, her name is regularly put first, she sounds as if she's the dominant voice, is charged with helping of Paulus to understand the way of God more perfectly, to use the King James Version. ! And I would say that that that's a jolly good thing. I just can't see anything.

[19:23]
wrong with it. But that's outside the domain of what Paul seems to forbid in 1 Timothy chapter 2 because this is not, Priscilla is not one of the elders who's taken this young man aside to try to improve him. This is a couple with her being the more informed or locations or something, helping somebody along in the context of family to family or a person to person and so on. That's a bit different from a church recognized teaching authority. Now, the primary

[19:57]
church recognized teaching authority in the New Testament is the elder, pastor overseer, elder pastor bishop. In all of the lists that are provided to describe their qualifications, able to teach is required. Now, deacons may teach, but it's not required of them. It's no part of their job. And for that reason, I know that some disagree, for that reason, I don't see any difficulty with a woman being a deacon. Except in some denominations, deacon has come to mean junior elder.

[20:31]
And suddenly, because we use some of our labels differently from the way they use the labels in the New Testament, we get into all kinds of difficulty because we use the same word but mean something different by it. So, church recognized teaching authority. In other words, the church itself has certain voices that have a kind of ecclesiastical authority built into it. James tells us not to be many teachers knowing that you will face more severe judgment on the last day. It's one of the verses,

[21:04]
James 3.1, that scares me witless on occasion. You know, don't be many teachers because you're going to be judged more severely on the last day, so I'll go around the world teaching everybody. You know? I'm sort of asking for it. You know? But also, what that does is show that although there is a sense in which in the church everybody should be teaching at one level, if you share your faith, you're teaching the faith in the family, or you have a small group, I mean, everybody should be teaching something or other, as you share a verse or teach something to a neighbor or whatever.

[21:38]
Yet in terms of a church recognized teaching authority, then the warning is there shouldn't be too many of you because you face the greater judgment and not everybody's qualified and so on. It's that that, that it seems to me, is finally forbidden the woman in the New Testament. Does that help at all? Yeah. I think this will be our last one, Don. This is from the phone. Would it be possible for you to give practical illustrations to how a wife is a helper and the husband is the head, e.g. in the home, just, discipling, children, wife working, etc.

[22:11]
I think it's following on from your impassioned plea for whole families, and it's asking for a little bit more practical exploration if we can. Oh, there's so many. things that could be brought up. I worry, for example, about homes where only the mother prays with the kids or leads family devotions. Or does, or supervises their homework or plays with them.

[22:48]
with them. I mean, there's so much of nurture that goes on in terms of modeling. If you're a dad and your kids never hear you pray, then the chances are very good that eventually your son thinks that praying is for women and children. If you are going to be the head of the home, then you take primary responsibility for family devotions or for family catechises. a mile out a bit of advertising here.

[23:20]
We've just put on our website. Now, you can download it onto an iPad for free. What we call the New City Catechism, it's really a kind of slight simplification of Westminster and Hiderberg. It's 52 questions and answers. So we're encouraging families to use it one week a year. One year you've done, or sometimes churches are doing. And there's a little video clip that explains things. There's a children's version for kids up to the age of eight with simplified English,

[23:52]
and all of that, all of those words in the simplified English are actually found in the adult version as well, so you don't have to unlearn stuff when you graduate to the larger one. So I'm not sure that every family is going to do that sort of thing. All I am saying is if you're going to do it in your family, make sure it's the head of the home that's organizing it. And make it fun to memorize stuff. My daughter Tiffany had memorized about 23 chapters of scripture by the age of. of three and a half because we made a game of it. I mean, I could tell you how we did it. It was great fun. And then she began to…

[24:24]
Yeah, you just said a three-year-old, memorized 23 chapters of the script. You have everyone's attention and you said you could tell us. Yeah. How the heck did you do that? She was a verbal little tyke to begin with. I mean, she just was. And my wife's English and the English have endless, endless nursery rhymes. and books and stuff like that. By the time she was two, we had four nursery rhyme books. And in each book, there was a picture on one side or nursery ram on the other side.

[24:56]
And because we had read these things to her again, again, again, again, again, again, again. She could open up any one of those books, look at the picture, and then recite the whole nursery rhyme. That was 100 poems. And it suddenly dawned on me. She was just about two weeks shy of two at this point. It suddenly dawned on me if she can memorize nursery rhymes, she can jolly well memorize some scripture. So in family devotions, we'd always had the kids with us. You know, in family devotions, make them short, make them snappy, make them funny, whatever. So she sat in her high chair at the end of supper in our case.

[25:30]
And we'd read a brief passage of scripture. So what we did on this occasion was we started with 1st Corinthians 1. I read 1st, Corinthians 1, the first paragraph, and 1st Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Next night, 1st Corinthians 1, the second paragraph, and 1st. And the next night, 1 Corinthians 1st. 1st.1 paragraph and 1 Corinthians 13. Well, after about two weeks of this, I dropped off the last word of each phrase. So I said, though I looked at her, she said, speak with a tongue of men and of angels, but have not.

[26:07]
Love. I'm only a resounding gong. And she just dropped them in there, ping, ping, ping, ping, all the way through. And about two. after that, she said, Tiffy do it. Grab my Bible. Stuck in front of her and recited, 1st Corinthians 13. Now, mind you, my wife and I fell off our chairs when she got to the bit of it. When I was a child, I understood as a child.

[26:45]
I think devotion should be non-fun. And she got to the stage where what she really needed was less of that and more narrative. So we started reading and family devotions, all the narrative stuff of scripture. And then you know when kids go through narratives, and they want the narratives re-read and re-read and re-read and read. And then eventually when she was 11 or 12, I know that story. It's boring. Why can we read some Ecclesiastes or Isaiah or something? I said, no, no, no, you're not ready for that. You're not ready for that. With her reverse psychology always worked. With Nicholas, it never worked. With her reverse psychology always worked. Oh, yes.

[27:15]
I am ready for. Try me. You'll see. You see. So you tease it out a little longer. And so we started doing other things at different times of their life. And we reviewed the stuff every once in a while. And then when she was, oh, 15 or 16, we were on a family devotion. We were family holidays somewhere. We were visiting a church. And somebody read Psalm 8. She poked me and said, that's when I memorized, isn't it? So they're not all at the top of her memory right now, but it would take very little for them to come back because they're sort of buried in there. You know what I mean?

[27:45]
But it was meant to be fun. And you can do that with catechesis, and you can do a lot of stuff. I mean, how much stuff do we memorize of junk music? You know, why to memorize some scripture?