There were some instances where I found the author’s use/communication/application of certain terminologies difficult to process. One of the terms that he spoke at length about is “revelation”. In textual analysis, two statements can help guide you in the process of deriving the author’s intended meaning from a text. They are “context is king” and “meanings are not in words, meanings are in people”. Both of these statements point to the fact that a word might mean nothing unless properly situated in the intended context by the reader. Which means one word can mean different things in different contexts. This is the case for “revelation”. The term comes from the Greek word apokalupsis, which simply means a disclosure or an unveiling. For our discussion, we will look at 3 different contexts within which the word can have a slightly different meaning:

1. Revelation in the ordinary sense: It is used to signify the uncovering or divulging of information that was previously hidden or unknown. 
2. Revelation in the theological sense: It is used to refer to what God has made known about himself. Dr. Otabil refers to this context as the specific canonical meaning of the word in relation to scripture.
3. Revelation in the prophetic sense: This refers to the uncovering of spiritual and physical information to a man or a woman by God. 

All three are valid and legitimate; the same word but different contexts, hence it is always important to state or clarify the context within which the word is being used. In the book, we see the author use the word revelation both in the theological and prophetic contexts. The theological definition and usage can be found on page 9, and the prophetic usage can be found on page 19 when he said that “prophets received visions, dreams, and revelations…”. Here, he was referring to “revelation” in the prophetic sense. We see Paul also use the word in the prophetic sense in 1 Corinthians 14:26 to signify the uncovering of the mysteries of God, secrets of men, and future occurrences. Hence, when Dr. Otabil stated that the word ‘revelation’ “… is often used more loosely in present-day prophetic discourse”, I didn’t agree with it. Referring to the use of the word in the prophetic context as “loose” downplays its legitimate existence and usage in any other sense apart from the theological one. Every single contextual meaning of a word is valid so long as the context is properly defined and communicated. One context (the theological one) should not be given undue prominence over others. 

Secondly, from the book, I get the sense that Dr. Otabil believes that “Pastor” is a more humble title for any man of God to take on as compared to “Prophet” even if the said man of God is called to be a Prophet. I am not quite sure of this, but there are some statements he makes on page 92 that give me this impression:

1. During the early years of the Pentecostal movement, church leaders were typically addressed in HUMBLE, relational terms such as brother, sister, pastor, or reverend minister.
2. Such restraint guards against potential spiritual abuse, preserves the primacy of Scripture, and upholds the humility and servanthood characterising true Christian leadership. 

He argues his point by referencing historical church practices and what he refers to as classical Pentecostalism. For these reasons, he concludes by saying, “given the biblical witness and the broader experience of the Christian church, it is WISE for ministers of the Gospel to avoid adopting the title ‘prophet’”. 

Of course, if you are a Pastor, you must be called one; there is no need to assume a title that doesn’t holistically define your God-given calling. But my point is, “Pastor” is an office on its own and should be treated as such. It shouldn’t be regarded as a generic title for every man of God. I believe that, so far as there were people identified in the New Testament as Prophets, we should have absolutely no qualms with contemporary Prophets being called “Prophets” in the church today -especially if they are called of God to be Prophets. Acts 13 opens by informing us that there were two distinct groups of ministers in the church in Antioch: Prophets and Teachers. Again, in Acts 11, we are told that some Prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, including Prophet Agabus. He was singled out because he gave a prophecy that came to pass about a famine coming over the whole world. The precision exhibited in the bible, in calling ministers by their actual title, is also a demonstration of doctrinal precision. The bible doesn’t mince words, and we shouldn’t either. The bible calls prophets “prophets” because they are prophets, and for those who just had the prophetic gifts, we are told so. In the case of Philip’s daughters in Acts 21, we are told they prophesied, but it was never said that they were Prophetesses. That is precision. So I expect that if someone is a prophet in the contemporary church, they should be called so, regardless of what practice was predominant throughout the history of the church after the closing of the canon of scripture. Additionally, positing that “Pastor” is a more humble title to assume somehow suggests that “prophet” is a prideful title to accept. I might be reaching, but please bear with me. What I do think is this: if God calls me to be a Prophet, then a Prophet I am. Pride is when I change my title to something else for whatever reason. 

There is one more quote from the book that I respectfully disagree with. On page 107, Dr. Otabil had this to say about contemporary prophets:

Their words do not give direction to the believer, in their day-to-day walk with God. Instead, a prophet’s ministry serves as confirmation of the direction a believer has received, either through God’s written word or the inward witness of the Holy Spirit.

I agree strongly with the first part. I believe that believers must strive to live a life daily led by the truth of God’s word and the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. Some are so dependent on their Pastors and Prophets that they are unable to make decisions and take actions without first consulting their man of God and getting confirmation to proceed. I find this to be wrong and inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible in the New Testament. Prophets are not omnipresent or omniscient, but God is. Therefore, we must all strive to know God in a way that is deeply rooted in his word and fellowship with the Holy Spirit. However, the point of disagreement in this quote for me is when the author says a prophet’s ministry is to serve as confirmation of the direction that the believer has already received. I believe this to be true and important, but it is not always the case. We are aware of prophecies in the New Testament that came as a confirmation of what the believer already knew; case in point, the story of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem. In his farewell message to the Ephesian Elders, Paul states that the Holy Spirit had testified to him in every city he had been to that imprisonment and afflictions await him (Acts 20:22-23). This message will be subsequently prophesied by people in two other cities he visited:

1. Tyre: Some disciples urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem (Acts 21:4)
2. Caesarea: Prophet Agabus also prophesied the impending arrest of Paul in Jerusalem (Acts 21:11)

In this case, the believer, Paul, knew this because he had already been told by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps, you can say the subsequent warnings that came had more details – but from what we are told, at least, Paul knew affliction and imprisonment awaited him. But there are some cases in the book of Acts where a prophetic word comes, and the believers involved seem to have no prior knowledge of it. Here are two examples:

1. When Agabus prophesied global famine, we are never told that the other believers already knew by the Spirit that it was going to happen. But rather, they heeded the Prophet’s warning and determined to send relief to their brethren in Judea (Acts 11:28-29).
2. In Acts 13:1-2, we are told that a group of Teachers and Prophets in Antioch met and spent some time worshipping and fasting, and the Holy Spirit instructed them to separate unto him Paul and Barnabas. This prophetic word didn’t seem to come as a confirmation of what any of them knew. It seems this group of believers received the word as a direction from God that they needed to act on, and so they did. 

I guess what I am trying to say is, in my perspective, a prophetic word can come as a confirmation of what the believer already knows from scripture and the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. But I believe there are times when the word might come as a fresh prediction or directive from God that the believer would have to pray about, then act on. Perhaps Dr. Otabil holds this view too, but it wasn’t clear from my reading of the book, or it wasn’t stated at all.

I really loved reading this book, and writing this review allowed me to re-read my favourite parts. It is an essential document every Christian must have on their bookshelves, especially in these times. It takes a more critical and theological look at the prophetic ministry, and this is exceptional because we are often told not to look at the prophetic like that. We are told not to subject the prophetic ministry and prophets to sound theological scrutiny. That is why I loved reading this so much – the author shares no experiences, just a strict adherence to the counsel of God through scripture on the subject, and I loved it. So I hope you grab a copy, read it, and do share what you learnt. 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Romans 12:1

The Apostle Paul makes a solemn appeal to the brethren in the church at Rome to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. In doing so, he beseeches them by the mercies of God to signify the gravity of what he is about to communicate and the fact he expects the brethren to take his words seriously. 

I will attempt to unpack these 3 terminologies the apostle used in this verse:

1. Living sacrifice – A sacrifice is a sacrifice because it is dead. In the Old Testament, animals that were sacrificed to God were first killed and then burnt. Burning a live animal on the altar could result in all kinds of unpleasant and chaotic experiences. The animal, even if tied, could scatter the altar once set ablaze. Therefore, it is best practice to slaughter the animal first before burning it on the altar. Again, sacrifices are sacrifices because they are dead. Case in point, the instructions God gave to Moses regarding how burnt sacrifices should be offered in Leviticus 1:3-9. God instructed him to slaughter the animal, shed its blood, skin it and chop it up into pieces. This is what it means to offer a sacrifice to God. Hence, when Paul beseeches the brethren to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, he presents us with a grand antithetic idea. It seems he expects the brethren to live as though dead. The apostle expects life and death to dwell together in the same being at the same time. In 2 Corinthians 4:10, Paul presents this same idea in a different way. He said, “we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”. This basically means that believers are expected to live their lives observing and  practising the essence of the sacrifice of Jesus. The essence of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is captured in a statement he made in Gethsemane. While praying in Gethsemane, he battled with God to fulfil his purpose on this earth. But eventually, Christ said, “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt”. Here we see Jesus, though alive, yet dying to his own will. This is what it means to be a living sacrifice: to be alive yet dead to your own desires, will and expectations. It is wrong is to allow our will and desires to prevail over the divine and ultimate will of God for us and humankind. To live as a living sacrifice is to be dead to yourself and alive to God. It means to deny yourself because you have to say yes to him. For us to fully actualize the life of Jesus in our body, we must carry in our bodies the reality of the death of Jesus. Which is the fact that he could have refused to die on the cross and he could have saved himself from the cross. But he didn’t! He was not pursuing his will while on earth, he was fulfilling the will of the father. Jesus in the flesh, was the ultimate living sacrifice. No wonder he calls us to live like he did. In carrying in our bodies the essence of the death of Christ, his very life will be revealed in us. He was treated like a sheep being led to the slaughter, not resisting arrest nor fighting back. In fact, he rebuked Peter for attacking one of the Roman soldiers who came to arrest him in Gethsemane. This is the height of a life that was lived as a sacrifice.

2. Holy – This means that the lives we present to God must be uncommon among men. We cannot flow with the tide of the day and expect to live holy lives. There is a saying that goes like this, “only a dead fish goes with the tide”. We have been called to be living sacrifices alright, however we are expected to live to God and die to the desires of our own hearts and the pervading philosophies and ideas of our world. Therefore, a life worth presenting to God should be a life that is set apart for him. That is a life that is lived according to the leading of the Spirit. A holy life. One that has no pleasure in sin and finds no reason to over-indulge in the mundane and wallow in the profane. 

3. Acceptable to God – Because you present something to God doesn’t mean he will accept it. Some sacrifices in the bible were rejected by God. Case in point, Cain’s sacrifice was rejected by God in Genesis 4:1-7. For anything to be regarded by God, it has to be honourable, of good quality and carefully selected or presented. We must be intentional about the way we present ourselves to God. The content of our lives are of immense interest to God. What we indulge in repeatedly forms the content of our lives. Therefore, if you are to present yourself to God at a time in your life when the mundane and the profane preoccupy your entire life, chances are that this sacrifice may not be acceptable to God. I need to reiterate the point that God indeed rejects sacrifices. The notion that anything at all presented to God should be acceptable to him is a warped one. He is the King of Kings and clearly requires the best of things as well. God deserves to receive the best from our lives, including what we do with it. Some people are of the view that they will use their youthful years to pursue sinful pleasures and turn to the LORD in their old age. While God is merciful to accept people who turn to him, yet we are emphatically admonished in Ecclesiastes 12:1 to remember our Creator in the days of our youth. God deserves the best years of our lives too. God shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought neither should we present to him the years of our lives in which our strength is weak and our reasoning is dim. We must present an acceptable sacrifice to him like Abel did. Practically, we can do this by valuing the life he gave us, adding value to it and presenting it back to him. 

Paul goes on to explain that, presenting our bodies in this manner is our “…reasonable act of worship”. The ESV bible puts it this way “… your spiritual worship”. I find it interesting to know that how we present our bodies to God has spiritual implications. This presupposes that the way to worship God spiritually, is to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him. What I do with my body has implications on how spiritual my worship is. Paul curiously quizzes the Corinthian church in 1st Corinthians 6:19: 

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own

Our bodies are the holy dwelling place of the Holy Spirit who came to reside in us at the new birth. Therefore, we must treat it as such. We must be very careful not to desecrate the holy habitation of the King of the universe. We must not sling mud and filth where the Holy Spirit dwells. He is called the Holy Spirit for a reason. After Paul asked this question quoted in the verse above, he goes on to say in the next verse, “ … for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body”. What we do with our bodies must continually and consistently bring glory to God. Sexual sin is known to be the only sin that negatively impacts the human body. It is an audacious desecration of the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and it doesn’t bring glory to God. Let us pursue a holy and sinless lifestyle, flee from sexual sin so we can continue to present our bodies to God as holy and acceptable to the King of all kings.

We certainly cannot talk about consecration without making a single reference to cleansing. Consecration involves the purification and cleansing of an individual, a group of people, artefacts etc. at the Lord’s command or request. The cleansing process could be a ritual or an actual washing of the person in question to make them fit for the Lord’s presence or an assignment. 

When we say an individual is being consecrated, we are saying the person is undergoing a purification process which will produce holiness. Holiness is a command therefore we must subject ourselves to the process that allows us to carry out this command. God commanded the Israelites through Moses in Leviticus 19:2 saying “you shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy”. Apostle Peter echoes this command in 1 Peter 1:16. Holiness connotes sacredness, uncommonness, and being set apart or distant from that which is mundane and profane. To be holy is to be like God in character, conduct and deed. It requires putting off the old nature and its demands and putting on the new man which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Colossians 3:10). Believers all over the world are undergoing this same process of being made perfect and holy. This is what consecration is all about. 

When it comes to cleansing during consecration, the bible often talks about it in two ways: physical cleanliness and cleanliness of the heart. There is an emphasis on the former in the old testament and an emphasis on the latter in the new. 

Physical cleanliness

In the anchor bible passage for this article, God commands Moses to consecrate the children of Israel in preparation for his meeting with them. The terms of this consecration required the Israelites to wash their garments (Exodus 19:10). This indicates the necessity of a clean appearance before the LORD which is similar to the purity laws outlined in the book of Leviticus. Therefore, the LORD’s command to the Israelites to wash their garments before meeting with him is very consistent with his character. He is holy hence anybody who wants to draw near him must cleanse themselves from filth. Without holiness, it is impossible to see God (Hebrews 12:14). When God manifests physically in a place, your physical appearance and the cleanliness of the environment are very crucial. This idea is evident in the verse below: 

“You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. Deuteronomy 23:12-14

The above passage builds a bridge between the cleanliness of the environment and holiness. Prior to this command, it seems the Israelites eased themselves within their camp. This is an environmental problem that could have led to outbreaks of diseases and whatnot. However, the LORD addresses this problem as a spiritual one that has implications on the holiness of the people and his closeness to them. God says, because he walked in the midst of their camp to deliver them and give up their enemies before them, they must be holy. In this case, their environment must be clean. 

Wherever you intend to host God must be clean and devoid of filth. That includes physical locations like temples and prayer rooms. However, in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 6:19), we are told that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we are expected to keep the temple (our bodies) as sacred as possible and homely for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

This leads me to the next point…

Cleanliness of the heart

God is very much concerned about the state of the human heart: how sinful it is or how hungry it is for righteousness. God who is Spirit outlined several purity and hygiene laws in the Old Testament because he walked in the camp of the Israelites and in some cases he manifested himself physically to them. In whatever space God chooses to appear, it is our responsibility to make that space clean and habitable for him. Be it a physical space or in the heart. 

God is concerned about purity at all levels and in all aspects of a person’s life. Be it in their thoughts, actions, appearance etc. God commands all of us to be holy as he is holy: without spot, without blemish. God wants us to be pure, without any impurities existing in us. In 2 Timothy 2:20-22, Paul makes an illustration that puts the responsibility of becoming an honourable vessel in the LORD’s house on the believer. He put it this way:

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

There are many vessels in the master’s house; some are honourable, others are dishonourable. If anybody would put in the work to cleanse themselves from dishonourable activities, the master will set them apart as holy and use them for every good work. When the Apostle speaks about being cleansed from that which is dishonourable, he isn’t referring to physical appearance here. He is referring to sin and in some cases mundane activities. That which is common among men is usually unholy or unlike God. In the New Testament, appearing physically clean and honourable is good, however, being clean in your heart should be the top priority to us all. Jesus made this clear when he rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 in what is popularly known as “the 7 woes”. Between verses 25 and 28 Jesus rebukes the Scribes and Pharisees in this manner:

• Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence
• You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
• Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
• So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The Scribes and Pharisees appeared most righteous among all men. They put in a lot of work to appear clean (kindly read Matthew 23). They put a lot of effort into physically distinguishing themselves from the average person. But they paid very little attention to the cleanliness of their heart. There was greed, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, lawlessness and all manner of uncleanness in their heart but they focused on their appearance before men. They cared very little about their appearance before God. This was the reason why Jesus rebuked them sharply. There are lessons here for all of us: we need to put a lot more effort into cleansing ourselves from that which is dishonourable and indulge in that which is honourable. It is only then that we will become vessels set apart for honourable use. 

How do we cleanse ourselves from that which is dishonourable as New Testament believers? The answer is in what Jesus told the Pharisees: First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, so that the outside also may be clean. Although, physical cleanliness is important the priority should be the cleanliness of the heart. Once we start from the heart, it will be projected on the outside. The Scribes and Pharisees had it in reverse; they thought being physically clean would make them more acceptable to God.

To be consecrated is to be conformed to the image of God. Conformity is a proximity issue. You are more likely to conform to the image of the closest person to you. Therefore, in all our pursuits, we need to be deliberate about pursuing God and drawing close to him on a minute-to-minute basis. Jesus made a statement in Matthew 23:17 that captures this thought perfectly. He said the gold in the temple is made sacred because it is in the temple. Gold is valuable in and out of the temple. But gold is only regarded as sacred or holy when it is within the 4 walls of a temple. Where you are and who you are close to determines whether you will be successful at living a consecrated life or not. Choose to draw close to the Holy one and he will expose the uncleanness of your heart and grant you grace to cleanse yourself from that which is dishonourable.

Feature image: @frankfmx on IG

In Genesis, for two chapters we are given the account of the creation story. God calls forth the plants, animals etc. and they come into existence. When it got to the turn of man, God said ‘Let us make man in our own image and in our likeness…’. God indeed set out to create a being that would bear his image, his likeness and have dominion over creation. Genesis goes on to state a very important truth that we must bear in mind as we move on. It said ‘… male and female he created them’. This is interesting. It means no single sex owns the rights to the image of God. Not males. Not females. Both men and women equally bear the image of God. Therefore, none of us has the right to claim we are better image bearers of God or we bear God’s image in a greater measure than another person because of our sex. He made us all in his image.

The bible states that God is not a man. ‘Man’ here doesn’t necessarily mean male but human. Jesus also tells us that ‘God is spirit…’. One of the major reasons why God made the two sexes is, reproduction. We are sure of this because the first command God gave to Adam and Eve is to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…’. To the best of my knowledge, we are not told anywhere in scripture that spirit beings reproduce. Spirit beings are not sexual beings. So is it right to classify God who is spirit as either male or female?

The Incarnation of Christ

God made men and women in his image and this is a fact that cannot be disputed because it has been emphatically stated in scripture. However, the incarnation of THE WORD, Jesus Christ, poses a bit of a problem for us so far as this topic is concerned. Not only that but the fact that Jesus referred to God while he was on earth as his father. Also, the Bible describes Jesus as the express image of the invisible God, so if Jesus is a male then are we to assume God is a male too? This is what I have to say to that, sex (male and female) only came into existence when God created living things. The Bible describes God as the God who was, who is and who is to come. God existed way before he made anything material. He decided to come down as one of the two sexes and reveal himself to us as the father. That is it. However, how do we understand this truth in light of the already stated fact that women too are made in the image of God?

From the get-go, the Jews knew Jesus was going to be a male because of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah said ‘unto us, a child is born, unto us, a son is given’. Jesus being a man is a fact that transcends time. For when he died he died as a man when he resurrected he did so as a man. A man who could be touched and felt. He even sat and ate with his disciples when he resurrected. Also, he is God. So we are very confident about the sex of Jesus. Concerning God, the first person of the Trinity, he has revealed himself to us as the Father. This is also a fact that we cannot overlook in this discussion. The Trinity is made up of three distinct personalities and we know that Jesus was incarnated as a man amongst the three. Therefore it is Jesus’ sex (both on earth and in eternity) we are 100% percent sure of. There is no contradiction in the fact that God made both men and women in his image, came down as a man and has revealed himself to us as the father. To state that this is a contradiction is to say God’s entire being can ONLY be expressed as a male. Or that God exhausted his entire nature in his coming to earth as a man. And this is rather a contradiction of what is stated in Genesis regarding God making both men and women in his image and after his likeness.  This tells us that bearing the image of God goes beyond sex and any human classification. To bear God’s image is to literally have his DNA and his imprint on you. Whether you are a man or a woman once you find yourself on this earth you are made in God’s image and likeness. So yes, we are sure of the fact that Jesus is male, God is revealed to us as the father and lastly, both men and women are made in the image of God. This is to say that men get their maleness from God and women get their femaleness from God.

The Idolatry of having a wrong image of God

“People are not allowed to make images of God because he already made images of himself – the Bible Project (Image of God)”

Paul makes a very important statement in his letter to the Corinthians that addresses the topic under discussion. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:16 that ‘Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’. The new creation realities are in reference to the regenerated spirit, not the flesh. So when a man comes to the saving knowledge of Christ we say he is born again, not his body but his spirit. Therefore, we regard no man after the flesh but we know each man in spirit or we regard each person as spirit. Paul says if in the past we knew Christ after the flesh, we do so no more. Jesus is not a man that we have deified but rather he is God who came down to this earth as a man. There are people who raise who Jesus was on earth above his deity or they simply have little or no regard at all for his deity. Some say he was merely a moral teacher, others see him as a Jewish mythological character and some others see him as an ancient street magician. What a poor way to regard Jesus Christ!

Spoken Word poet Jackie Hill-Perry said ‘we have to understand God rightly to know him intimately’ and I agree with her. We have to endeavor to know God rightly to worship him rightly. Take for example someone who believes God listens to prayers only on Wednesdays. This person would have to wait until it is Wednesday to pray to God because perhaps according to his theology God is asleep for the rest of the week. But we know the truth because we are told in scripture that He who watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers, meaning he is accessible all day every day. You can create a caricature of God and worship it because you are not well-informed and lack revelation of who he truly is. This is idolatry.

Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:23 that some men thought of themselves as wise not knowing they were fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds etc. The first stage of idolatry is to change the image of God into something else. The concept of idolatry is more nuanced than we make it out to be. Most times it is more mental, psychological, intellectual than it is spiritual and physical. For some of us so far as we don’t have a physical object in our rooms that we pray to in earnest spirituality, we assume we don’t engage in idolatry. When your understanding of who God is is far from the truth, however you are still devoted to that false image of God in worship, you are an idolater. We have to know God for who he is and not for what we want him to be or what we wish he was.

I say this because I’ve seen people raise concerns about the place of women in the Christian faith because Jesus came down to the world as a man and the fact that God has revealed himself to us as a father. I’ve also seen some people claim that men are superior to women because they believe men bear God’s image in a greater measure than women. Both groups of people do not take into consideration what is said about men and women being made in the image of God in the book of Genesis. Basically, the first group is trying to create God in their own image. The second is exalting males over females because God came down to earth as a male and has revealed himself to us as a father. By insisting on putting God into a human classification that we belong to and refusing to worship him until it is universally accepted as such, we are saying until God is made in our image, he isn’t worthy of our worship. Until God looks like us, we won’t worship him. That, my friends, is idolatry. It is not God we desire to worship it is our nature.

Exalting yourself above others because of your sex for any reason at all (including the misinterpretation of scripture) is sexism. This too is idolatry. When we do this, we worship our maleness and not God. This kind of thinking is based on a lie that the revelation of God as a father and his incarnation as the Son is a fact that makes men generally superior to women. Paul said, ‘…there is neither male nor female… for we are all one in Christ’. This doesn’t mean that there is no sex/gender in Christ, rather it implies that the unifying factor in Christianity far outweighs the physical, features that may distinguish us.

However, ‘women in ministry’ has always been a controversial subject that has divided the body of Christ to an extent. There are denominations that believe women are not allowed to stand in the pulpit to instruct men publicly. Others see no problem with that. I don’t seek to merely take sides (although my opening paragraph gives my position away). What I seek to do with this write-up is to point out what God’s word says on the matter and I hope I do just that and not let my personal opinions and preferences cloud my judgment.

First of all, this problem arose from the misinterpretation of some portions of the New Testament – specifically the writings of Paul. In two separate passages found in two of his epistles, Paul admonishes the recipients of his letter to make sure the women in the church keep quiet and learn in submission. These two passages can be found in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14. Due to the instructions, Paul gave in these two passages, some believe that it isn’t scripturally correct for a woman to pastor a church. Before I proceed, I’d like to clarify a few things. The controversy is not necessarily about the prohibition of women from sharing the gospel with people – as that would have been an outright contradiction of the great commission Jesus gave to believers. I believe what is in contention here is whether women should be allowed to pastor a church thereby instructing men in scripture and exercising authority over them.

I will start with the easier of the two texts, 1^st Corinthians 14:33-36. In this passage, Paul states emphatically that women are not permitted to speak in church and that if they would want to learn anything they should ask their husbands at home. The second part of this instruction gives us a hint of the context of the events Paul was addressing. However, this isn’t clear to all so we would still have to delve deeper into the issue. So Paul prohibits women from speaking in church. How can we convince people that the gospel of grace is one built on the foundation of love if there is a verse that seeks to suggest that women as a sexually-defined group of people are not allowed to speak in the church simply because they are women? It is hard to reconcile this notion with the ethos of the New Testament. We don’t need to go far, let’s stay in the book of 1^st Corinthians. In the 11^th chapter of the same book, Paul admonishes women to pray and prophesy with their heads covered. Throughout the book of 1^st Corinthians, we see the apostle speak elaborately on the gifts of the spirit and how they should be administered in the church. The gift of prophecy being one of the most prominent of all the gifts was duly addressed by Paul. He stated that when one person is prophesying, there should be total silence in the church. Since it is already an established fact that women can prophesy in church just like their male counterparts, doesn’t this tell us that they are at liberty to speak in church?

Indeed women are permitted to speak in the church to the hearing of everyone. This doesn’t in any way render Paul’s instructions for women to keep quiet in the church void. What we should be asking ourselves is, what kind of ‘quiet’ was the apostle referring to? Analyzing the text soundly would reveal that the apostle gave the instructions amongst several other instructions that would promote orderliness in church. Hence it is safe to say that he instructed women to be quiet in the instance when their talking was distracting the flow of the church service. It is believed that during service some of the women were fond of asking their husbands questions, seeking further clarifications of what was being taught. Hence the apostle’s instruction that they should ask their husbands at home if they didn’t understand what was being taught. The same Paul who said women should prophesy with their heads covered couldn’t have said in the same book that they are not permitted to prophesy (or speak publicly) in the church. In his essay on ‘Women in Ministry’, Adoniram Judson states that ‘So it seems, at least, for this word “prophesy” in the New Testament “signifies not merely to foretell future events, but to communicate religious truth in general under a Divine inspiration” (vide Hackett on “Acts”, p.49)’. This tells us that women are very much allowed to instruct men in scripture – I will delve into this a little more later on.

The second passage that causes confusion about women in ministry is in 1^st Timothy 2. This is a far more difficult text because it introduces some historical events as the basis of the instructions given by the apostle. Here again, Paul instructs that women should not be allowed to teach nor usurp authority over men. Let’s look at the context in which he makes this statement. So Timothy was head of the church in Ephesus that is why this letter was being addressed to him. If you know anything about the ancient city of Ephesus, you would know that it was a city that was wholly given to idolatry. Specifically the worship of the goddess Artemis. The temple of Artemis was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It is an edifice that took 120 years to build. The temple was supported by 127 columns, each being 65 feet high (roughly 7 stories). Inside the building stood the huge multiple-breasted statue of the goddess. The servants (temple functionaries) of Artemis were mostly women. The men who were allowed to serve in the temple had to be castrated first – basically stripped of their manhood. This gives a bit of a background to the text under consideration. Some of these women had been converted and brought into the church. They were exposed to a system of worship where women exercised undue authority over men. It is believed that it was this particular problem that the apostle sought to address when he said I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over a man. It is worthy of note however that the apostle began this particular passage by stating that ‘let the women LEARN in silence and with all subjection’ (v11). This indicates that he wasn’t against female education and that is very important to this topic. It may appear trivial to us today but we need to understand that in those days women were not allowed to study the word of God. Kenneth Bailey mentions that:

Judith Hauptmann, in her essay on “Images of Women in the Talmud,” notes Rabbi Eliezer’s view that it is better to burn the words of the Torah than to give them to women.

With the passage in 1Timothy 2, the main problem is the fact that Paul makes reference to historical data as the basis for his instructions. He states that the reason he prohibits women from teaching and exercising authority over men is that in the garden, it was the woman that was deceived and not the man. This is interesting. So our quest is to find out why the woman was first deceived and not the man in the garden. Now it was Eve who was deceived first. That is to say that Adam was deceived as well so let’s not get ahead of ourselves and assume that there is a device preinstalled in men that prevents them from falling prey to deception. As a matter of fact in the book of 2Timothy Paul states categorically that there were some men teaching false doctrines, entering into homes of women who were burdened by the guilt of their own sins hence these women fell for their lies (2 Timothy 3:6). We can see that all the Apostle is advocating for is the teaching of sound doctrine. This cannot happen when the one being taught is exhibiting a haughty attitude towards the teacher. That is why he admonishes women to learn in quietness and not usurp authority over their teachers – who were men. This looks very much like the event in the garden where a woman was instructed by her husband and it was her who FIRST sinned. Was Paul admonishing all women to submit to the authority of all men? I doubt that, that is an instruction meant for married people. Paul was admonishing the women in the church to submit to sound teaching by being silent while they learn and not fall prey to deception like Eve did. 2Timothy 3 actually proves that they had already started falling for the lies of heretic male teachers in the city.

The last verse of this chapter talks about women being saved in childbearing. This is a tough one too. If you are familiar with the writings of Paul, you would know that he was vehemently opposed to any teaching that suggested that anybody could be saved in another way other than confessing Jesus. So definitely, he wasn’t saying here that women will obtain salvation in the Lord through childbirth. The word translated as ‘saved’ is ‘sozo’ – which can also mean ‘prosper’, ‘to be in good health’, ‘blessed’ etc. Therefore, we can understand that portion of scripture as Paul saying women shall prosper in childbearing. Why would he say that? Because it is believed there was a false doctrine going around intending to prohibit women from having children or even getting married. Again, we see the apostle address doctrinal issues here.

This is the end of part one of this short series. Do look out for the continuation in the next blog post. Remember to make your contributions and ask your questions in the comment section below.

References:

Ken Bailey – “Women in Ministry – Woodstock Q and A”

Adoniram Judson – “Women in Ministry”

Hugenberger – “Women in ministry”

Kaiser – “Women in Ministry, commentary on text”

This is quite complicated don’t you think so? It is difficult to understand with the human mind and understanding. This is why most people make a mockery of tongues. Speaking in tongues has always attracted mockery from people who don’t understand its place in the church. The first time it was spoken, onlookers thought the apostles were drunk.

As already stated, speaking in tongues dates back to the day of Pentecost. In fact, speaking in tongues was the evidence of the gift Jesus Christ asked the apostles to wait for. That being said, it is crucial that I state that the speaking of tongues was not recorded anywhere in the Old Testament. Neither are we ever told Jesus himself spoke in tongues. However, Isaiah, the same prophet who prophesied the birth of Jesus, prophesied about tongues. He said in Isaiah 28:11 that ‘… by men with stammering lips and strange tongue will He (God) speak to this people’. Paul confirms that this verse was in reference to the speaking of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14:21. Is it not amazing that Isaiah did not only speak about tongues, but he emphasized the point that it will be a means through which God will communicate to people? Speaking in tongues is a language through which God himself speaks to either the speaker or a group of people. To buttress a point I made in the first paragraph, tongues is spoken by a person who doesn’t understand what he is saying, in some cases, God picks it up and sends the meaning back to the person or to a group of people gathered.

A careful study of the subject of tongues, especially in the book of 1st Corinthians, reveals that believers can experience tongues in two major ways. The first of which is to use tongues as a prayer language, the second is to use tongues as a way to enter into the prophetic. A good understanding of this fact will put an end to most of the controversies surrounding tongues. In 1st Corinthians 14:13, Paul said that anyone who speaks in tongues should pray that God would grant him the ability to interpret it. He said this right after he made the point that it was his wish that every believer spoke in tongues and more importantly, prophesied. However, speaking in tongues and interpreting it is equal to the gift of prophecy. He also went on to state that, anybody who speaks in tongues openly to a congregation must be in the position to interpret it or there must be someone in the congregation to interpret it. If there is no one to interpret the tongues, the speaker should sit down and speak to himself and to his/her God. All these tell us that one can experience tongues as a prayer language and in other cases as a means to the prophetic. The latter is very much encouraged by the Apostle Paul. We can all speak in tongues. We can all prophesy. The key here is to have a strong desire for these gifts and God will honor the desire if it stems from faith in him by granting us graciously what we so desire.

The question is often asked, is speaking in tongues the sole indicator that one has received the Holy Spirit? Before I make any emphatic statement, I would like us to examine three events – all in the book of Acts. The first time that the apostles, together with the other believers spoke in tongues, the bible says the Holy Spirit had descended on all who were in the room and there were visible cloven tongues of fire on their heads. They spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. The second event is the story of Peter’s visit to the house of Cornelius. This was a total shocker because Cornelius was a Roman centurion, and hence, he was the least likely candidate to receive the Holy Spirit. However, in this story, while Peter was still expounding the word of God to Cornelius and his household, the spirit of God fell on them and they all began to speak in tongues and prophesy. The last event is recorded in Acts 19, where we see Paul interacting with some disciples at Ephesus. He asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit, they said no. So he laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in tongues and they also prophesied. What is the point here? From all indications, it seems in the New Testament, when the Holy Spirit comes upon a believer or when he/she is baptized in the spirit, he/she first speaks in tongues and in some cases prophesies. Primarily, the individual receives power when the Spirit comes upon him/her; the power to do what the spirit leads and this includes speaking in tongues. However, I am not saying one cannot interact with the Holy Spirit or encounter him unless he speaks in tongues. In the Old Testament we see the spirit of God come over so many people and yet none of them spoke in tongues. However, in some cases, when the spirit came over some people, they prophesied. Case in point, when the Spirit came upon King Saul and he prophesied.

I was astounded to hear Dr. George Arthur say in a sermon that for 1600 years, the speaking of tongues was prohibited in the church. Nevertheless, there were a few individuals who did speak in tongues. Therefore, the Pentecost experience lasted for only 200 years. This shook me. The question is why and how did this happen. I believe some verses in the Bible, taken out of context in their interpretation, contributed to this. I am going to do my best to share a few of such with you:

Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? … 1st Corinthians 12:30

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease… 1st Corinthians 13:8

In the first verse, Paul was talking about the fact that not all of us operate in the same gifts however, our individual gifts come together to edify the church. That is why he asked, ‘do all speak in tongues?’. The tongues Paul talks about here is the special gift of tongues. We all should speak in tongues however, there are people with a special gift of tongues which is often characterized by the ability to interpret it. The second verse is also often quoted to support the assertion that tongues ceased right after the era of the early apostles. I have one response to both arguments. My response is found in 1St Corinthians 14:39. In that verse, Paul says ‘So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues’. This implies that tongues-speaking must not be prohibited by any believer or denomination of the church. In the second verse, the apostle mentions that tongues shall cease. It isn’t clear what he means or when this shall happen, but one thing I do know is that we are in the same covenant with God as Paul was. Therefore, if he said nobody should forbid speaking in tongues, then this instruction very much is relevant to us today. It couldn’t be that the apostle contradicted himself in the same epistle to the Corinthians.

Paul is not the only one who emphasized the need for believers to speak in tongues. Jude in Jude 1:20 also said believers must build themselves up in their most holy faith, praying in the spirit. Praying in the spirit is another term for speaking in tongues. This can be seen in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians where he told the believers to pray in the spirit at all times (Ephesians 6:18) and also in 1st Corinthians 14:15.

Speaking in tongues is highly relevant in our walk with God today. It launches us into the realm of the manifestation of the spirit like nothing else. Just as Jude said in the verse above, we build up ourselves in our most holy faith when we speak in tongues. This is to buttress what Paul said in Corinthians about how speaking in tongues edifies the believer. Speaking in tongues is intimacy with the Most High God. It is like you and God have your own secret love language. I will urge all of us to desire and ask God to grant us the ability to first speak in tongues (those who don’t speak it) and (those who speak it) the ability to interpret it which is equal to the gift of prophecy.

One thing that I have realized Christians rarely talk about is the faith and humility required to speak in tongues. The truth is, the Holy Spirit gives you utterance when you speak in tongues, therefore you must have faith in him that he is addressing the burdens of your heart accurately or better than you would if you prayed in any human language. It is difficult to appoint another person to make an appeal on your behalf unless you believe that that person will better articulate your grievances than yourself. This is why it takes a lot of faith to speak in tongues. It takes a lot of faith in the Holy Spirit. The truth is, we are not ever articulate enough to communicate our own burdens and desires to God aptly. It says in scripture that we don’t know how to pray as we ought to so the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. See? The Holy Spirit is a better prayer warrior than you are. If you can understand it, then you can muster the humility and faith that is required for one to speak in tongues.

Tongues is also a unifier of the body of Christ. It brings people of different cultural backgrounds together by giving them a common language. Again, Dr. George Arthur said, “tongues is the antithesis of Babylon”. Meaning, tongues is the direct opposite of what happened during the construction of the tower of Babel. While in those times God gave the people different languages to cause disunity, in our time he has given us a strange language to unify the church. The first time the believers spoke in tongues, there were people from different parts of the world represented there. And all of them could hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. Some of the people came from Cyrene and Lybia (Africa), Judea, Cappadocia, Rome, Pontus, Asia etc. They all drew near to the upper room and were later addressed by Peter. That day 3000 of them gave their lives to Christ. Now, this reminds me of another controversy surrounding the speaking of tongues. Most people are of the view that it is not tongues until it is a human language spoken by someone somewhere in this world. For example, if I’m Ghanaian, my tongues should probably be in Italian. This assertion is based on what happened on the day of Pentecost where people from different parts of the world could hear the believers speak their own language. Concerning tongues, Paul said in 1st Corinthians 14:2, that “one who speaks in tongues speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit”. Therefore, tongues are not supposed to be understood by human beings. However, we see that on the day of Pentecost people could hear the believers speak their own dialect and language. I believe this was supernatural and it may happen in some instances especially when the Holy Spirit wants to use tongues as a sign to some unbelievers. However, it is not always the case that when you speak in tongues then you are speaking some foreign human language. It doesn’t always work like that.

There are a 1000 and 1 more things I could share on speaking in tongues but space and time won’t allow me. When I set out to write this, I only wanted to prove that speaking in tongues was highly biblical and still relevant in our time. But while writing it, I was convicted to pray for all who read this to either start speaking in tongues if they don’t already, and to those who speak, to ask God to help them interpret tongues and prophesy. I pray that we all have an encounter with the spirit after reading this article.

However, Grace is not just news, it is the very personality of God revealed. I wish I could repeat this a thousand times. It is a not just a message, it is the revelation of who God is by his precious Holy Spirit. Therefore just by telling it won’t cut it, we need to demonstrate Grace as well. There are people preaching the fire and brimstone of hell, seeking to scare people into accepting Jesus Christ. There is no fear in love so how can anybody last in the kingdom of God if they entered because they were afraid of the other place? It is rather sad and painful that there are people who still preach a performance-based gospel. After all what Jesus did? Why would you preach the law under the dispensation of Grace? Anyway, the reaction of those of us who claim to be enlightened in the new creation realities is my focus in this post. All of a sudden it appears the Holy Spirit is opening my eyes to the negativity exhibited by some of us ‘Grace Preachers’. How we bash our brothers and sisters who preach the law. How we tag them as ‘anti-Christ’. How we claim they are being influenced by the devil. WE ARE PREACHING GRACE WITHOUT THE SPIRIT OF GRACE.

We have reduced it to a message so we don’t know our tone, choice of words, posture, demeanor etc. can all distort the message. How different are we from those who preach the law when we have managed to tag anybody who preaches a doctrine different from ours as the anti-Christ? The message of grace is most efficacious when inspired by the Spirit of Grace. God is very much interested in the way we deliver the message as much as he is in the message getting to the intended recipient. In Jeremiah 2:2, God told the prophet to “Go and cry into the ears of Jerusalem, saying …”. See? God gave the prophet the emotions with which to express himself before he gave him the message. This goes to show that God is very much particular about how a message from Him is delivered to the intended recipients. You don’t mock another person’s theology while engaging him/her and later present the Gospel of Grace to them. Where was Grace in your conduct? Grace, that inextinguishable force that forcefully snatches people from the clutches of the enemy will never mock another person’s poor understanding of scripture. Just as Jesus was filled with compassion when he saw the multitudes, so should you be driven by a deep sense of concern and compassion anytime you encounter people who preach another gospel than Grace. It is our duty to teach such people the best way we can. This is not the time to put them down and tease them or make them feel unaccepted.

Some of us may make reference to what Paul said in Galatians 1:8 in defense of the use of harsh words on people who preach the law. Let us examine that passage, shall we? Paul was writing to the church in Galatia mainly to draw their attention to the fact that they were drifting away from the true gospel and slipping into a performance-based relationship with God. Paul was quite furious. He said if anybody, even angels, preached a gospel other than that which the Galatians had received earlier, let that person be accursed. This doesn’t justify the name-calling I’m seeing on social media. Let me explain. The preceding verse (Galatians 1:7) gives us the understanding that Paul was referring to “…those who want to distort the gospel of Jesus Christ’. The ESV translation puts it this way ‘…those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ”. Which means the people Paul is declaring accursed are those who deliberately distort the gospel of grace. We just need to understand that there are those who are doing it deliberately but there are those who are genuinely ignorant, let us not lump them all in and curse them all.

Largely, this post is about how those of us who are enlightened should treat our brethren who are not. There are two stories in the book of Acts that I would like to cite to support my assertion. The first one is the story of Apollos. He is described as “… an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures… “who taught accurately the things concerning Jesus though he only knew the baptism of John. How was Apollos competent in the scriptures and still not adequately informed about the gospel of Jesus? It is simple, no one person is the repository of biblical knowledge. That is why we need to be humble enough to listen when we are corrected and humble in the way we correct as well.

In the New Testament, the baptism of John was performance-based and it is a shadow of that which was to come. John himself said that the one to come after him would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Apollos had no knowledge of this, yet he was teaching in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him preach something slightly erroneous, this was their reaction:

… but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Acts 18:25

Did you see that? This is the Spirit of Grace on display. The spirit that makes you come to the realization that what you know was revealed to you so there is no need to flaunt it or brag about it. But whenever it is necessary, teach others in humility and not for vain recognition. Priscilla and Aquila didn’t hop onto social media to taunt the doctrine of Apollos. They didn’t call him the anti-Christ, neither did they insult him. They dragged him aside and taught him the true gospel. Apollos grew in the faith and became almost as influential in Christendom as Paul was. To the extent that in the book of Corinthians Paul said ‘What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:12). See? This is the same Apollos in the book of Acts being counted amongst the champions of the Christian faith. This kind of fanaticism is not encouraged because it breeds division, however, my point remains, Apollos who was taught by Priscilla and Aquila became so influential that he had quite a following amongst the Christians of those days. Do not tear people down when they don’t know as much as you do. Offer help when you can. Teach them the right way. Call them aside, don’t call them out to embarrass them on social media. Preach Grace by the Spirit of Grace.

The second story that illustrates how the Spirit of Grace operates is the story of Cornelius the Roman Centurion. He was a devout man who prayed to God and gave generously to all who needed help. An angel appeared to him and told him to send men to bring the Apostle Peter to his house. Just around the same time, the Spirit of Grace was at work in Peter’s life. Through a vision, God was communicating to Peter that that which he (God) has called clean, no man should call unclean. This vision was in reference to the coming move of God amongst the Gentiles. Immediately the men from Cornelius arrived, Peter went with them to Caesarea. First things first, the Roman Centurion and his entire household bowed before Peter to worship him when arrived at the house. Peter asked them to rise up and he went on to say “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean”. God says we shouldn’t call anybody unclean, so how are some of us tagging others whose theology doesn’t match with ours as ‘anti-Christ’? Though Cornelius was a devout man, his knowledge of God was inadequate and that is why God sent Peter there. Notice how Peter didn’t insult him, or refer to his lack of understanding of the Grace of God and the move of the Holy Spirit; Peter went there solely to teach Cornelius and his entire household the wonderful Gospel of Grace. Peter’s being there alone was a demonstration of grace, why? Because it was unlawful for Jews to mingle with Gentiles, therefore by going there, Peter was abolishing that law and bestowing unmerited favor on the entire household of the Roman centurion. While Peter was teaching them about the Holy Spirit and the Grace of God, they were all filled with the Spirit of God and began to speak in tongues, Hallelujah! This is it! There is the demonstration of the Spirit of God when Grace is preached by the Spirit of Grace. The Spirit of Grace is the Holy Spirit, he doesn’t come to condemn, ridicule theology or embarrass people who don’t know much. He comes to convict them, save them and then pour out himself into them.

May we learn from Priscilla and Aquila. May we learn from Peter as well. May we learn from Paul too. May we get to the point where we will be driven by compassion to teach people whose knowledge of God is inadequate. This is not the time to show off or assume a high chair as a biblical scholar extraordinaire. We need a lot more well-equipped laborers on the ground, offer help to build them up when you can.

The very few times I have been chastised publicly, I rebelled. Especially in my adult years. I am of the view that there is a better way of doing everything – including correcting a person. Hence, if you can’t call me aside and whisper my flaws softly into my ears then I assume you are the one with issues. You probably need to check your anger bro. And you too sis, you need to read more on grace to understand what scripture says about not judging people. But hey, you really can’t grow out of certain things unless you are chastised in the open. Open rebuke is a two-edged sword. The harsh words hurled at you coupled with the shame you feel because it was done in public do you more good than evil if you humble yourself to accept your flaws.

Solomon said in Proverbs 27:5 ESV. ‘Better is open rebuke than hidden love’. Ouch! So it is biblical after all. It isn’t a pleasant experience and I believe those who openly rebuke people should do so with caution. Lashing out at somebody and becoming verbally abusive can easily be camouflaged as an open rebuke. When in actual fact the perpetrator is just exhibiting a lack of self-control. We should be tactical in our approach. It should be planned. I have heard of so many instances where a person commits a sin and is brought to the podium in church and rebuked openly or even stripped of some title or position. These are usually carefully planned and thought out. Hence, they are less reactionary but more corrective.

Is Solomon the only person in scripture who approved open rebuke? Certainly not. The New Testament is almost riddled with many instances of open rebuke. Let us look at a few of such cases. Jesus’ dialogues with the Pharisees are often an example of open rebuke. Paul is also known to have openly rebuked Peter in Galatians 2:11 for acting hypocritically in the presence of some of James’ followers. Peter was comfortable eating with some Gentiles and immediately he saw these men, the ‘circumcision party’ as Paul calls them, he stopped. Indeed, Peter was a higher-ranking apostle than Paul so by hierarchical order Paul had no authority over him. However, when it comes to jurisdictional order, Paul did. Paul was known to be the apostle sent to the Gentiles. Therefore, anything concerning the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians was an issue of major concern to him. Hence his reaction to Peter’s hypocrisy.

In 1^st Corinthians 5, Paul dealt with a peculiar issue. He made mention of a case where a man, who was a member of the church in Corinth, was known to be having sexual relations with his father’s wife. Paul said such this kind of sexual immorality wasn’t even known amongst pagans. Therefore he told the church ‘let him who has done this be removed from among you’. Ouch! Excommunication. Well, I could deal with this actually. If the elders of the church approached me secretly and told me to leave the church because of my sin, I would be hurt, but I would leave. It is sneaky alright, but less embarrassing. Guess what, Paul isn’t done making his point yet. In verse 4 and 5 he said:

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. (ESV)

Wait a minute. So we are on the verge of establishing the fact that open rebuke is biblical but where from ‘deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh’? A few verses away, Paul says the man should be excommunicated, which is understandable. But how are we as Christians supposed to deliver a fellow Christian to Satan for the destruction of his flesh? The issue gets more confusing when we remember how Jesus went about open rebuke. Remember when Peter was bent on stopping Jesus from being caught and crucified? Jesus turned and faced Peter. But he didn’t address Peter, he rather cast out the devil out of Peter. This is open rebuke like no other. The problem has been dealt with to the roots. This is why what Paul said up there appears confusing to me. Where he says the man who committed the abomination should be DELIVERED TO Satan, Jesus rather DELIVERED Peter FROM the manipulation of Satan.

Here is another instance in 1 Timothy 1:19-20 ESV:

… holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Yet again we see fellow Christians being delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, in this case for blaspheming. What was the sin Alexander and Hymanaeus committed? In 2 Timothy 4:14, Paul states that Alexander the coppersmith did him (Paul) a lot of harm. No further details – that was all he said about Alexander. Hymanaeus’ sin is also mentioned in 2 Timothy 2:17-18. According to Paul, Hymanaeus together with Philetus ‘who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some’. So obviously the sins of Hymanaeus and Alexander had serious implications.

What does it mean to deliver someone to Satan for the destruction of the flesh? From scripture we see Paul doing this to fellow Christians and even non-believers who committed some particular sins. Paul in Acts 13:8-11 delivered a sorcerer by name of Elymas to the devil for the destruction of his flesh. A mist fell on him and he became blind instantly. His crime? He opposed Paul and Barnabas in their bid to preach the word to the Proconsul. Delivering someone to Satan for the destruction of the flesh means to pronounce judgment over the person that will result in sickness or even some permanent disease coming upon the person. This is done so as to cause the person to repent of their sins. This is very noteworthy, the end goal of delivering someone to Satan is to cause the person to repent. Do not do so merely because you are angry and wish to punish the person who has sinned.

Back to the contrast between Paul’s approach to open rebuke and that of Jesus. In this very instance, before Paul pronounced judgment on the sorcerer, scripture says he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Which means, what he did was inspired by God himself. Therefore, it doesn’t in any way contradict what Jesus did or how he went about it. The issue here is that not every sin requires open rebuke or deliverance to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Open rebuke is godly. The effect it must have on you is repentance. I believe this is what Paul meant when he said in 2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV:

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

To be openly rebuked will cause one to be ashamed of his/her actions thereby leading him/her to repentance. To be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh will make you physically stricken by a disease, also leading to repentance. Both are painful experiences; the latter is worse. Let’s learn to heed to the voice and promptings of the Holy Spirit always lest we fall into any kind of sin that would merit either one of these two punishments. Those of us who mete out these two punishments should also do so with a lot of caution and out of love. Not every sin requires open rebuke.

We must first establish the fact that the issue of slavery is quite complex. The characteristics of slavery is so complicated that it is almost impossible (and largely erroneous) to provide a generalized definition of the term. That makes perfect sense considering the fact that child labor, indentured service, chattel slavery, forced labour, sex trafficking, apprenticeship-internship etc. were all commonly referred to as ‘slavery’ during biblical times. Since the mention of slavery brings to the table several forms of servitude, this discussion will employ terminologies to help identify the form of servitude being spoken of at each point in time.

It is very sad that people blame the New World chattel slavery (slaves were treated as actual property, had no legal protection and no means to attain liberty) on Christianity when the traditional leaders of the land exchanged their own people for manufactured goods, weapons, sugar, mirrors,whiskey etc. How do you bypass this fact to blame the Transatlantic Slave trade on the supposed ‘tool’ the oppressor used? Slavery is against the human rights of human beings. The world has come a long way in the fight for human rights. Is it not ironic that Christianity played a major role in the abolishment of the New World chattel slavery especially in the U.S? Even long after the New World chattel slavery was abolished, the black civil rights movement was also spearheaded by people like Dr. Martin Luther King. And although many forget this fact, he was a reverend minister. A house divided against itself shall not stand. If the bible indeed promotes such form of brutality, how come Christians made major contributions to its abolishment all over the world?

The Old Testament alone contains many alarming instances of slavery that open our eyes to how widespread and lucrative it was in those days. Remember the story of Elisha and the wife of the prophet… the prophet who left his wife at the mercy of his creditor when he died? One of the things the creditor told her was that, either she paid up all the money her husband owed him before his death or risk having her sons sold into slavery. This compelled the widow to contact the prophet Elisha for help. Again, this scenario tells us that slavery was very widespread and lucrative then. It appears one could easily have contact with slavers. I made this inference from the manner in which Joseph’s brothers sold him to slave-merchants who later sold him into slavery in Egypt. Speaking of Egypt, it is obvious that Egypt was probably one of the ancient hubs of the slave trade. Remember how the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel for about 430 years? The unfortunate thing is, many people tend to disassociate Egypt from Africa. No, Egypt is very much an African country. And historical accounts show that some other African countries had slaves from other continents too.

Indeed some of the most heinous crimes ever reported in human history are said to have been motivated by supposed approval culprits discovered in the bible. This includes the New World chattel slavery. It is very alarming, considering the level of damage the Slave Trade has done to Africa as a continent. But none of it is true. The bible doesn’t tell Christians to go about enslaving anybody they can overpower.

Enslaving defeated foes was almost like the winning prize of a war. Considering the number of wars in the bible, I believe that gives you a fair idea of how many instances of slavery there are in the bible.

Slavery was a form of punishment in the bible too. Anytime the Israelites rebelled against God or reverted to idol worship, God allowed their enemies to defeat them in a war and capture them. This scenario recurs so many times in the Old Testament that one would wonder if the Israelites didn’t ever learn from their past mistakes and that of their forefathers.

Obviously the Israelites must have had slaves too. As stated already, slaves are amongst the ‘spoils’ soldiers brought back home from wars. The issue here is what the bible says about how the children of God should treat slaves. One of Paul’s unconventional epistles in the bible is the book of Philemon. We see Paul use a more soft and apologetic tone in this epistle. This is even more stunning considering the fact that Paul was talking to someone he had authority over. He states it clearly that he could compel Philemon to do as he says, but out of love he would rather appeal to his conscience to do the right thing. All this was in connection with Philemon’s slave,Onesimus. Onesimus had wronged Philemon and had left to be with Paul. It appears his departure is what caused the rift between him and his master. Paul worked closely with Onesimus and had great love for him. The former slave was now a staunch Christian. Paul was sending him back to his former master and required Philemon to treat him like a brother in Christ and not a slave. He could have imposed this initiative on Philemon but chose to make an appeal out of love. Here, we see Paul making a great contribution to the liberation of a slave.

In the New Testament, Christian ‘slave masters’ are admonished to treat their slaves like brothers and Christian slaves are admonished to honour their masters no matter how mean they are to them. This is where the contention is. It appears by admonishing slave masters to deal with their slaves kindly, the issue of slavery hasn’t been dealt with at its roots. As stated earlier, several forms of slavery did occur in biblical times. In Timothy 6 for instance, Paul made reference to economic-based slavery (known as ‘indentured service’) where people offered themselves as slaves to work for other families in order to survive or pay off a debt. God regulated this form of servitude by establishing a set of strict laws to protect men and women (be it Hebrew or Gentile) from any form of cruel treatment by their masters. Below are some of the laws God used to regulate this kind of slavery:

• Forbade masters from running big interest charges on servant’s loans (Leviticus 25:35-38)
• Provided marriage rights (Exodus 21:4,10-11)
• Physical protection rights ( Deuteronomy 10:19; 24:14, Leviticus 19:34, Exodus 21:26-27, Leviticus 25:39-41)
• Provided freedom rights (Deuteronomy 15:1;12, 23:15)

NB: Most of the laws of the Ancient Near East gave room for chattel slavery as the laws provided very little or no protection at all for the slaves. God’s Law on the other hand offered protection for slaves in Israel at that time amidst harsh conditions faced by their counterparts elsewhere.  

 

It’s no surprise then that some slaves rather preferred to stay behind looking at the great benefits that came along with working in their master’s home. Most of them for instance had access to formal education and also had the opportunity to learn a trade like carpentry and medicine. There was the sense of belonging to a family unlike chattel slavery that equated one to nothing more than a piece of furniture. ‘To fire a bullet into a slave was like firing a bullet into a pumpkin, not like firing a bullet into a human.’, as one researcher described the plight of chattel slaves. It’s sad that many feel God’s Law made provisions for chattel slavery when in the actual fact, God’s laws prohibited any form of servant mistreatment (check scriptural references above). In the Bible, kidnapping people and making them slaves against their will was clearly a crime punishable by death! (Exodus 21:16). Paul actually emphasized God’s disapproval of this kind of slave trading in his letter here. What Paul is doing over here is harking to Old Testament ethic and condemning chattel slavery alongside heinous acts like lying, murder and sodomy. Several forms of master-servant relationship existed under God’s Law BUT nowhere in scripture did He ever endorse a dehumanizing relationship such as New World chattel slavery. Yet skeptics will somehow manage to read a portion of scripture and criticize it for supporting such brutality while the entire Bible, in its rightful context, makes plain God’s disapproval of any deplorable acts of cruelty and injustice.

Anyway, with respect to warning Christian slave masters to treat their slaves kindly, there’s a potential problem we need to bring to light over here. There’s almost always the tendency for one to abuse his or her newfound freedom. This is nothing new. Just as many of the women at that time misunderstood their newfound freedom in Christ (referring to gender equality), it was very likely some slaves had also began to overstep their boundaries by disobeying their masters. Some probably got complacent, seeing no need to either work hard  or show respect to their masters–someone they were now equal with because of Christianity. Well, too bad because Christianity came not to extinguish social positions BUT rather to make them completely irrelevant to accepting the new life in Christ. This is how Christianity differed from the Greco-Roman culture: the latter placed much emphasis on one’s status based on one’s family or wealth. In God’s family, both the Jew and Greek, Circumcised and Uncircumcised, Male and Female, Barbarian and Scythian, as well as the slave and free are all in a common relationship with Christ Jesus. One group has absolutely no basis to undervalue another group because there’s no such thing as superiority/inferiority. The slave master in this case isn’t better than his servant because he himself is also a slave to the True Master in Heaven! This is why Slave masters were being admonished to treat their servants with utmost respect and dignity as a means to exemplify the approved relationship between those who were in a similar position. After all, each servant bore the image of Christ and as such deserved to be treated as God’s beloved.

Though the Bible is against practices that abuse and dehumanize a human being, many still feel the New Testament writers should have outlawed all forms of slavery altogether. If you’ve been following closely, you’ll agree that annulling the morally permissible, economic-based slavery would’ve done more harm than good to impoverished families. In the sense that this was the only means by which they could fend for themselves. Moreover, about 40% of the Roman population comprised slaves; most of which were young children but some were adults. Paul really understood the times he was living in knowing very well the social catastrophe he would have caused had he managed to persuade the Roman government to free all slaves. This is not to say that Paul had no future plans of instructing the church to move away from the general slave system. We already know that Paul opposed slave-trading (1 Timothy 1:9-10) and in addition to that, advised people to pursue freedom (1 Corinthians 7:21-23). Until a much better social welfare program had been established, tearing down the only ‘welfare program’ that existed at that time would have exposed many to the harsh environment out there.

Written by Elvis Sampson and Elikplim Sabblah

References: 1 Timothy 6, Exodus 21, Leviticus 25, Deuteronomy 15, Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Colossians 3:11, Philemon, Does God Approve of slavery according to the bible?, The Atlantic slave trade: what few textbooks told you – Anthony Hazard, Does God condone slavery in the Bible? – Glenn Miller.

The reality is, it is not Christianity that is misogynistic, IT IS THE JEWISH CULTURE THEN THAT WAS MISOGYNISTIC. But Christ came to introduce us to a new life which he exemplified by showing the highest form of respect to women. We will delve into this later on. I would like to state this blatantly, one of the oldest acts of feminism is recorded in the bible. The fight for the rights of women started thousands of years ago. It was a very successful one seeing that the laws of Israel had to be amended because a bunch of young ladies who knew their rights, stood up to fight for it.  I speak of the daughters of Zelophehad – all five of them. There are a lot of lessons in their story that present-day feminists can learn. These young girls, upon realizing that they were being denied access to their father’s property after his death (because of their sex)  rose up and went straight to the highest authority of Israel – Moses – to demand what was duly theirs. Moses took the matter to God and God said “What the daughters of Zelophehad are saying is right”. Hence, they received properties amongst the relatives of their father and a new law was established. The point is, they didn’t go accusing Moses of being sexist – seeing that the law was above Moses himself. These ladies didn’t challenge Moses’ authority. They simply made an appeal, yet their actions yielded overwhelming results for them and the many other women like them. This is indeed feminism.

Nevertheless, throughout the bible we see so many instances where women are treated unfairly because of their sex. But let’s not go cherry-picking in the bible. The issue is, it is a bad academic exercise to pinpoint the misfortunes of women in the bible and use it as the foundation to argue out the fact that the bible is misogynistic. That is wrong.

Christianity derives its essence from the life and teachings of Christ. So to determine whether the Christian doctrine in itself is misogynistic, we need to look at the life of Christ and how he treated women. Jesus indeed made a deliberate attempt to go against the status quo set for someone of his status in his relations with women. First and foremost, he allowed his feet to be washed by Mary (a known whore). This is such a big deal considering who Jesus was and his purpose on this earth. Undoubtedly one of the most outstanding events fueled by patriarchy in the bible is the story of the woman who was about to be stoned by an irate mob. Apparently, she was caught committing adultery ‘alone’… all by herself. This is how patriarchal the people were. They didn’t think the man she was in bed with was as guilty as she was so they let him go and decided to stone only her. But Jesus stood up for the rights of this woman and turned the law against the mob. Being convicted by their own conscience and knowledge of the law, they left her alone. Even on the cross, Jesus displayed his love and respect for women. While hanging there, Jesus told his mother ‘woman, behold thy son’ and to John he said ‘behold your mother’. This little gesture implies that Jesus entrusted His mother into the caring arms of John before he died. As a Christian gentleman I am supposed to emulate this lifestyle in every way possible. The gospel of Jesus Christ compels me to respect women and fight for their rights.

One of the most controversial chapters in the bible, so far as sexism and misogyny is concerned is 1 Timothy 2. Militant critics are of the view that Paul’s pastoral letter to Timothy expresses some level of contempt towards women when he commanded them to remain silent and also forbid them to usurp spiritual authority over the men in church. I find people’s assumption that Paul promotes misogyny in this chapter to be very inconsistent with other Pauline writings. The apostle was a leading advocate of gender equality within a culture that was popularly known for its heightened hatred towards women. In Galatians 3, Paul makes it crystal clear that there’s no such thing as male or female in Christ’s family. That is, men and women are of equal importance in the eyes of God. A chunk of the New Testament informs us that Paul actually team-taught alongside various women, commending them with the highest form of respect for breaking their backs for the sake of the Gospel. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul stated that a husband had NO authority over his own body, but his wife DID and vice-versa. Now, that’s a very heavy pronouncement. This is Paul championing gender equality again by demanding mutual respect between both sexes in marital homes – especially concerning sexual activities. Just in case you missed it, the ‘so-called’ chauvinist, in Romans 16, makes a unique reference to Phoebe a sister in Christ, as a deacon. It was such a big deal in those days, that a woman could be a deacon just like Paul, Timothy and Apollos – who had presiding authorities over churches. Seems like the ‘sexist apostle’ is digging his own grave, right? Be reminded that we are examining these facts in the 1st century context where women were heavily despised!  

We see time and time again that Paul’s teachings were in sharp contrast with the promotion of sexism. What then do we make of Paul’s admonition to Timothy concerning women? 2 Timothy 3:6-7 and 1 Timothy 5:11-13 give us a clue as to what Paul intended to communicate to the people. The women of Ephesus then were deeply associated with paganism before they got converted to Christianity. As a result, they were probably spiritually immature. It then makes sense if Paul wasn’t going to risk anything by putting them on the forefront to promote the Gospel. Moreover, there were false teachers around who were ever ready to pounce on any of these women to teach them false doctrines—the very thing Paul was trying to avoid. In summary, I believe Paul was addressing a specific problem that plagued a specific church (the Church of Ephesus). He wasn’t making a general rule, nevertheless, any other church going through the same problem can apply this solution in their case. So if you should ask me, this ideology that Paul was sexist falls flat because the arguments to support such fallacious ideas do not in any way fit the teachings of the Bible. Proper exegesis reveals to every reader that NO passage in the Bible encourages people to oppress women. Rather the bible encourages wives even to strive hard in economic ventures. The woman in Proverbs 31 is a superhero; she has a stable job and still has her family at heart. This appears impossible in today’s world, but the bible encourages women to work hard in their careers while caring for their families.

I would like to say this quickly. More often than not people call out religious leaders for propagating sexist ideologies in their sermons and opinions expressed on other platforms. But why doesn’t anybody question evolutionism for its sexist ideologies? I honestly want to know how a woman can be a feminist and an evolutionist at the same. Especially because Charles Darwin claims that “… males are more evolutionarily advanced than females”. Which means by nature, men are ahead of their female counterparts intellectually and physically.

While it may seem like a greater portion of scripture records several masculine accomplishments, the Bible does extremely well in capturing equally significant events involving women. God appointed powerful women like Deborah and Esther to lead the Jews during Israel’s dark and spiritually-barren period. Jesus (God in flesh) revealed His true identity as the Savior of the world to the woman at the well, much to his disciple’s chagrin. The most important historical event of this world (the Resurrection of Christ) was revealed FIRST to a group of women. The prophet Isaiah, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, alluded God’s tender love towards His people to that of a MOTHER who comforts HER children. What a powerful positive feminine image! Time and space wouldn’t allow me to prove to you more that the Bible doesn’t oppress women but rather celebrates them. Sexism has never been God-orchestrated because in the beginning, He [God] created human beings—male and female—in His own image to reflect His nature. The Bible, God’s Word, will forever respect the intrinsic worth of both men and women. It is a word that is settled forever.

Written by: Elvis Sampson and Elikplim Sabblah

References: Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 7:4, John 4, Isaiah 66:13, Numbers 27 (Daughters of Zelophehad), 1 Timothy 2.