To God Alone the Glory

Father, we thank you that you are a God who speaks.

We confess before you that you are far more willing to speak to us than we are to listen.

And we confess before you, Father, that you are far more willing to listen to us than we are to speak to you.

We ask, Father, that you grant us a hearty desire to pray

and that you grant us a deep desire to listen deeply to all that you have to say.

Father, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us as we look at your word.

And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

About seven or eight weeks ago, I asked you to pray for me

because one of the ministries that we run during the school academic year for university is Church on Wednesday,

which is a time where we sing God's praises and the Bible is opened and you preach from the Bible.

And then we're going through the book of Colossians.

This is in a public place at the University of Ottawa.

And the text talked about wives and slaves, amongst other things.

And so I had the great privilege and honor to go and stand in public at the University of Ottawa

and talk about this controversial topic.

And I know many of you prayed for me and God was very kind.

And I think it went well.

Anyway, I think it went well.

Today, I'm going to talk about a controversial topic.

And in some ways, I'm going to be talking not about wives and slaves,

but in some ways, I'm going to talk about slaves.

I'm also going to be talking about women.

I'm going to be talking about the role of women in ministry.

In my flesh, I didn't want to do this.

I still don't want to do this.

I'm a Canadian, eh?

And, you know, it's not a very popular topic in Canadian circles,

which is why often there's a profound silence in churches.

But the reason I'm doing it is the same reason.

When I talked at the University of Ottawa,

and I said, why on earth would we talk about something

that can be a bit controversial like that?

And here's the reason.

Here's one of our commitments.

One of the things which non-Christians say about Christians

is that we pick and choose what we want to hear in the Bible.

You know, there's been some best-selling books,

a year of living biblically,

the year of, you know, being a biblical woman,

and they've been best-sellers.

And it's a very, very common complaint about Christians

that we say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we love the Bible,

we trust the Bible, but yeah, we only really like this part,

and we sort of ignore this part and don't do this part.

It's a very standard complaint about Christians.

And unfortunately, it often hits the mark, if we're honest.

And so one of the things that we're very committed to in this church

is that we preach through books of the Bible.

And by preaching through books of the Bible

in an attempt to declare the whole counsel of God,

it means that the Bible is going to force us to talk about things

that as Canadians we wouldn't want to normally talk about.

And so on one hand, we're doing this to try to, in fact,

not be pick-and-choosing Christians,

but to be Bible Christians, Gospel Christians.

And the other reason we're doing it

is that one of the other complaints

that non-Christians often have about Christians

is that it's, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

God has a wonderful plan for your life,

and oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all great, etc., etc.

And then you get in, and it's like there's fine print

in the contract that you didn't realize.

You know, like you get, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

but get this cell phone contract.

It's like no money.

You know, it's all free, and then you get into it,

and good grief, how do I get this huge bill, right?

There's the fine print.

And we don't want to be a church like that.

We want, you know, we want to just,

the Bible is a public revelation from God.

That's how he wrote it.

It's not a secret revelation just for the Illuminati,

the anointed.

It's a public declaration of the truth.

And, you know, I really urge,

if you have not given your life to Jesus,

that before this service ends today,

that you will give your life to Jesus.

Because the gospel is the power of God

to make you right with him.

And we were created to be at one with our creator.

And Jesus, in his death upon the cross,

is God's provision for you,

for him to make you right with himself.

And as his grace is poured into your life

to give you freedom and self-possession,

to live a self-effacing life to the glory of God,

which is what you were designed for.

So I urge you to give your life to Jesus.

And we're going to look at some of the fine print today.

We're going to talk a little bit about women in ministry

and ordination.

I'm going to talk about it this week and next.

And actually, I'll tell you now why I'm doing it.

So I pray a lot,

and I know others pray for me

in terms of how we're going to go through books of the Bible

and how the teaching is going to work.

And so, you know, I had made the decision under God

that we would go through the Book of Romans.

This is our last sermon in the Book of Romans.

And then I'd been praying about what we would do during the summer,

what would be a good series to go through during the summer

that I could share with Daniel.

And I came up with it.

It would be really good to go through the Book of Amos.

It's good to hear an Old Testament preaching series every year.

And I'm going to do 2 Corinthians in the fall.

But I knew when I was looking at the weeks,

I was going to have about three or four weeks,

depending on whether there was a guest speaker,

three weeks, as it turned out,

between Romans and Amos.

So I went looking for texts,

like Bible books that I could do in three weeks.

And Titus jumped out.

I hadn't preached on it in quite a long time.

I don't think I'd ever really preached on it in a church context.

I've taught it in other contexts.

And it's three chapters.

It fits.

And here's the thing.

In Romans 16,

you have some of the most important texts

in arguing for women's full inclusion in ministry.

And that's what we're going to look at today.

And next Sunday, I'm going to preach on Titus 1.

And Titus 1 is one of the most important texts

that restricts women in ministry.

And I didn't do this on purpose.

I'm not smart enough or clever enough.

And it only struck me on Monday as to what I'd done.

And so now I've maybe made a lot of you a bit anxious,

some of you a bit curious.

So let's charge in and see what it is that the Bible has to say.

Here's the thing we're going to say.

Romans 16, verse 1.

Romans 16:1

We should never be afraid of the Bible.

The Bible will confront our hearts.

The Bible will confront the idols of our hearts.

The Bible has different ways that it says exactly the sorts of things

that Canadians long for.

And the Bible has things to say that are exactly what Canadians fear.

But the Bible is God's word written.

It's God's word to us because he loves us.

It is an outline of sanity.

And I encourage you, if you get nothing else out of this sermon,

if, in fact, at the end of this sermon,

well, don't read the Bible just so you can prove that George is wrong.

George isn't always right.

I know that.

I'm not the Bible.

But if you get nothing else,

I hope that you get a deep desire to read the Bible every day,

to read it cover to cover, and to read it deeply,

that the Bible might form you,

and the Bible might form me,

and the Bible might form that, our church.

So it's a bit of a long introduction.

Romans 16.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe,

a servant of the church at Sencray,

that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints

and help her in whatever she may need from you,

for she has been a patron of many,

and myself as well.

Now just sort of pause here for a second.

And believe it or not,

there's pages and pages and pages written around this simple word,

servant, in academic commentaries.

You know, I notice here it says,

I commend to you our sister Phoebe,

a servant of the church at Sencray.

And depending on the Bible you have,

you might have a little note there that says that the word servant

might also be translated as deacon.

And so right off the bat,

you can see why,

especially if you're guests here from certain churches,

whether they allow women to be deacons or not,

this is potentially an explosive text for a lot of churches,

or an encouraging text for a lot of churches,

depending on how you sort it out.

Now, I want to deal with a heart issue here first.

I want to deal with a heart issue here first.

And this is true of every church,

but it's probably even more true of Anglican and Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

I mean, technically,

I could introduce myself as the Reverend Canon George Sinclair,

Rector of Church of the Messiah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We love titles.

Human beings love titles.

You know, in The Office,

isn't that so funny?

You watch The Office,

Dwight is always wanting to be like the assistant regional district manager,

and it's an ongoing joke.

People love titles.

One of the ways to demote somebody or get them out of trouble

is you give them a grand-sounding title with no authority somewhere

to get rid of him or her when they're problematic.

Isn't that true?

So here, if you could wrap the first point,

here's the hard issue.

Human beings love titles.

God loves right action.

So whether or not,

the fact of the matter is that you can't actually solve the issue

as to whether we should call Phoebe a deacon or a servant.

You know the important issue?

She's dead things.

Like, I'll be very honest with you.

I would have loved to have been elected bishop.

Why would I have loved being elected bishop?

Because, you know, it means I could boast that people liked me.

Would I actually like to be a bishop?

I would hate being a bishop.

I would hate being away from my family half of the year.

I would hate it.

I would loathe it.

But I sure would have liked the title.

Wouldn't want to do it.

But I'd like the title.

And I don't think I'm alone.

And so, you know, the bottom line is,

Phoebe here is an important person.

In the customs of the ancient day,

Paul has just introduced the person who brought the letter of Romans to the Romans.

He's saying, okay, you know the person who brought this letter?

Her name is Phoebe.

She's a person of substance.

She's a person of gravitas.

She is a person who is not just a talker.

She is a person who is a patron.

That means she has put her economic acumen,

her economic resources,

her organizational resources,

her property,

she has put them at the use of the church.

And she has brought her resources to bear to the church

for the church to flourish and accomplish what it has to accomplish.

She is a trustworthy servant,

a person of gravitas, importance, and authority.

Help her.

That's who she is.

That's what he's saying.

And so it's important for us just to remember here,

behind all of the things,

and I'm not saying that the other debates aren't important,

but it's really easy for us to get caught up in,

you know, intellectual arguments

without realizing that partially what motivates

our intellectual arguments

is a heart issue of our love for titles

and our lack of interest in actually doing things.

Okay, maybe I'm the most sinful person here in the room,

and it's only me who has this temptation,

but I think it's a pretty common temptation.

So that's the big heart issue.

Let's continue to continue reading verses.

But you notice how this has a bit of an impact for some churches,

where for some churches,

women can't have any type of position of authority in the church.

And yet here we have Paul.

And listen, money is money always.

And if somebody is a main financial giver,

a main giver of property,

a main giver of her business,

we don't know if she was a business person

or a person of independent means,

but she had some financial resources

and she was a smart cookie,

she knew how to use it,

and there's no way she didn't have authority.

I mean, that's just psychologically and humanly impossible.

And this is like a bit of a blow to a lot of Christians.

Let's continue reading.

It actually gets more interesting

with the very next two verses,

next three verses,

verses three and five.

Greet Prisca and Aquila,

my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,

who risked their necks for my life.

In other words, literally,

they came to a point where they,

it wasn't clear whether they would die.

They intervened in a way that meant that they might die.

But they did it to try to protect Paul.

Who risked their necks for my life,

to whom not only I give thanks,

but all the churches of the pagans give thanks as well.

Greet also the church in their house.

And just sort of pause there.

It's very significant that the woman is mentioned before the man,

that the woman has a name of affection and intimacy,

and Prisca and Aquila are actually quite well known

in the New Testament.

And one of the things which is significant about this

is that one of the most important characters in the early church

was a man by the name of Apollos.

And he was an important teacher and evangelist in the church.

And who did he learn the Christian faith from?

Prisca and Aquila.

So she taught him in an important way.

And they are obviously leaders,

and you have a woman teaching.

So this is a very, very significant text.

And it's a very, very significant text.

Now just before I read the rest of the list,

and I'm only going to actually,

I'm not going to read all of the next 26 people who are,

next 24 people who are mentioned.

It is interesting that the first two people mentioned are women.

But before I,

I'm not going to read all of the rest of the thing.

But what I want to tell you here,

and I'm not going to go through every one,

but almost a half of the rest of the list are slaves.

In our day and age,

if, well, we don't have slaves in Canada.

Well, I mean, there's a problem with sex slaves,

but as a general rule, it's illegal.

But in the ancient world,

there would be names that a citizen would have,

and there would be names that an owner would give to a slave.

So for almost half of the names in the rest of the list,

we don't know now whether they had been,

had been slaves and were now freed men or freed women,

or whether they were still slaves,

but they were slaves.

And 10 of the women who are mentioned,

the list of 20,

10 of the 26 people who are mentioned in the list are women.

And, and then the language of the way they are talked about,

these are all important leaders in the early church.

And so it's very,

very interesting.

In the list that we're about to see,

we're going to have slaves.

We're going to have rich people.

Phoebe is rich.

Erastus, which is mentioned later on,

is very wealthy.

We have rich people.

We have slaves.

We have Jewish people.

We have pagans.

We have people who were Roman citizens.

We have people who,

there's a woman here who's from Persia,

which is outside of the Roman Empire originally.

She must have been captured in some way,

or for whatever reason,

she was captured as a slave.

She's a slave woman,

probably a freed slave woman.

You have a very,

very diverse picture.

You're going to have a picture of slave churches,

which are completely and utterly equal to the other churches,

which would have been mixed slave and free.

You know,

it's very,

very interesting for some people.

When I said that I was going to be doing something controversial for most people,

when we look at Romans 16,

what's the big obstacle we have to it being in the Bible?

Boring!

Right?

Am I the only sinful person here in the room?

Your eyes glaze over these names you can't even pronounce.

But if you actually dig into them,

it's a fascinating glimpse of the early church.

It's absolutely,

and it's dynamite,

as I'm going to talk about in a moment.

It's a dynamite thing

in terms of how it affects social movements

and social structures and institutions

and how we think about a whole range of roles.

Like,

just before we get into it,

no,

I'll save this point for a moment.

Hopefully I'll remember it in a moment.

But here,

just before we go any further in the list,

could you put up the second point,

Rebecca?

And for any of these points,

if you don't have time to write,

if you want to write them down,

if they're helpful to you,

they're all going to be on the webpage on Monday,

I think it is.

There is only one gospel

from the one true God

to every person and people group.

That's one of the things

that we see here from this text.

It's very, very, very important

for us to understand.

There is only one gospel

from the one true God

to every person and people group.

There's a really, really good book.

I don't know how to pronounce his name.

It's a Muslim name.

A Muslim who became a Christian.

I think it's pronounced Tabidi.

I can't remember his last name.

It's an African Muslim name.

And he, in his book

about the gospel for Muslims,

the very, very beginning is,

he said there is no special gospel

for Muslims.

There's only the gospel.

If we want to go to China,

you don't come up with a Chinese gospel.

There's only the gospel.

You want to go to Tunisia?

There's no Tunisian gospel.

There's only the gospel.

You want to go to the transgendered community?

There's not a transgendered gospel.

There's only the gospel.

And what we really need as Christians

is to have a clarity about the gospel

so that with a clarity about the gospel,

when we're talking to somebody,

we can try to figure out

what images and analogies and metaphors

will help them to understand the gospel.

But there's not a separate transgendered

or Muslim or Chinese or atheist gospel.

There's only one gospel.

And we see this here

because who has been affected

by the one gospel?

Rich, poor, slaves, free,

men, women, Jewish, pagan,

Roman citizens, Persians,

all hear from the one true and living God,

the one gospel.

So, it's a very, very, very important thing.

Could you put up Romans 1, 16 to 17?

This will be the last chance we get to read it.

I'm going to have you all read it with me out loud

in a second.

Remember, some of you remember that I said

that the way Romans is written

in a very, very curious way

by its literary structure,

this basically summarizes the entire book.

It's as if Paul wrote

what we would now call an abstract

at the beginning of the book

that summarizes the entire message.

And so, everything in the book

is an unpacking of this.

And if you could read it out loud with me,

that would be very, very good.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel,

for it is the power of God

for salvation to everyone who believes,

to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in the gospel,

the righteousness of God

is revealed from faith to faith.

As it is written,

the righteous shall live by faith.

Two verses to memorize.

And what this is saying

is that God saw human need.

God saw that human beings

could not reconcile themselves to God

and that human beings were made

to be in fellowship and harmony with God.

And God saw our great need.

And so, He acted in a way which is right.

That's what righteous means.

And it also means He acted in a way

which is right

to make us right with Him.

He did it, not us.

And so, when Jesus is dying upon the cross

and He descends into the dead

and He rises on the third day,

and as I tell you about that,

I am not just telling you a story.

I am not just giving you metaphors.

I am not just giving you examples.

These are not just mere words.

When I tell you that Jesus died upon the cross,

that He rose again,

this message is power from God

to make you right with Him.

It doesn't matter if I raise my voice

with Him, I'm excited,

or if I speak very, very quietly,

or if I'm very, very stuffed up.

It has nothing to do

with my charisma or lack of it,

my eloquence or lack of it.

This is news that comes from God.

It is news that God has acted

with power to make you right with Himself

by what His Son did on the cross

for you and me.

And we receive it

not by accomplishment,

but by faith.

In a sense,

nothing in my hands I bring.

Lord, have mercy upon me.

It humbles the rich.

It humbles the victim.

It humbles those who believe

they're racially superior.

It humbles those who believe

they're intellectually or athletically

or sexually superior.

It humbles all human ideologies.

Because all we can say is

we cannot say,

I have a PhD,

I am rich and I am important.

All we can say is,

Lord, only You

can make me right with Yourself.

Only You.

Please receive me as Your own.

And the Bible says that

God turns none away.

There is none too bad,

none too broken,

none too unspiritual,

none too irreligious,

none too angry at God,

none too broken or a failure

in the eyes of the world,

none too successful,

none too brilliant or good-looking

or powerful,

that God will turn you away

when you humbly ask Him

to make you right with Himself

through His Son's death upon the cross.

God rushes in

with power to make you right.

Let's get back to reading.

So,

could you just go back

and put the second point up again?

Rebecca, back,

sorry, okay.

That's why there is only one gospel

from the one true God

to every person

and every people group.

Let's go back to reading verse 5.

Greet also to the church,

also the church in their house.

Greet my beloved Eponidas,

who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Greet Mary,

who has worked hard for you.

Greet Andronicus and Junia,

my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.

They are well known to the apostles,

and they were in Christ before me.

And pause here for a second.

And you would not believe

how many pages there are

in commentaries over that one verse.

Is it Junia or Junius?

Overwhelmingly,

it's a woman,

not a guy.

And what does it mean

about being amongst the apostles?

So, this is another one

of these dynamite texts

here in the Bible.

Here, Paul says

that these two people

could be brother and sister,

or it's more likely to be

a husband and wife.

Andronicus and Junia.

By kinsmen,

it means they're Jewish.

They were early Christians.

And they're apostles.

Now, in the New Testament,

there's basically two ways

that the word apostle is used.

It's used for the twelve,

and obviously,

these two are not part of the twelve.

But it's also used

in another sense.

It's used as a type

of an authoritative

taker

and creator

of new outreaches

and new ministries

and new missions.

I gave the example

at the eight o'clock service.

There's a fellow

who goes to the eight o'clock service.

His name is Carl.

He's on our council.

And he was very involved

in one of the many ministries

of Power to Change,

a ministry that works with men.

And he, in a sense,

was an apostle from them.

He was granted an authority.

They recognized a gifting in them.

He was granted the authority

and the commission

to come to Ottawa

and begin this ministry

in the Ottawa region.

I think there's now

fifteen men's groups.

It's become so successful

that after he had created several,

God used him to create several.

He stepped back,

continued to be a volunteer,

and they hired a staff person.

And in a sense,

what he did there

was an apostolic ministry.

It's an authoritative commission

to go and to create

new Christian ministries

or go into new areas

that do not have

Christian presences

and be used by God

for churches and ministries to come.

And that's what apostle,

that's the other meaning of apostle.

And here it's saying

that there's a woman

who's among them.

It's a very, very important text.

It really is.

Let's keep reading.

Verse 8.

Greet Ampliatus,

my beloved in the Lord.

Greet Urbanus,

our fellow worker in Christ,

and my beloved Stachis.

I don't know how to pronounce that at all.

Greet Apellas,

who is approved in Christ.

Greet those who belong

to the family of Aristopolis.

And I'm going to stop here

with the list of names

to draw something out.

There's no little asterisk here

beside the word family,

but afterwards during coffee

we can have a debate

whether some of your Bibles

say household,

some say family.

We can have a debate

about which is the better term.

Here's where I would say

that household

is the better term

to translate it.

In the original language,

what he's noticed,

he's not saying that Aristopolis,

and it's going to come up

a second time

with a different person,

they're not Christians.

So what he's doing

is saying,

greet the slaves,

the Christian slaves,

who are owned by this man.

And in fact,

what it's saying

in the original language,

in the ancient world,

there's only one church in Rome,

only one church in Rome,

but the one church in Rome

is made up of a series

of what we would now call

small churches.

And the implication is here

in the next case

that there's a church of slaves.

But they're not second-class churches.

It's not like it was

in the worst parts of apartheid

or the worst parts

of the American South

where black churches

would be second-class churches,

not equal with a white church.

You know,

there's a very important movement

in the States

called Black Lives Matter.

And in a sense,

what Paul is just saying here

in huge, bold print

is slaves' lives matter.

Their church is just as equal

as the other churches,

the ones in people

of means houses.

Here's two big takeaways from this.

If you could put up the third point,

that would be great.

God desires to use

every person gripped by the gospel

to make a powerful difference

in the world for his glory.

God desires to use

every person gripped by the gospel

to make a powerful difference

in the world for his glory.

I put in here desires

because, of course,

some of us spend days,

weeks, months, years

resisting God.

God wants us to do something.

We know God wants us

to do something

and we don't do it

because it would make us look geeky.

It would make us look foolish.

It would make us look stupid.

It would make us look unpopular

with the hip people

or the cool people

or, I don't know,

we just don't.

Maybe I'm the only sinful person here

once again,

but I have a suspicion

that many of us

who are maybe with tears

would say,

yeah, that's really described

a lot of things in my life.

But here's the thing.

This text is showing us.

It's not saying,

okay, well, here,

it's really, really unfortunate

that all you slaves

became Christians

because, like, you're slaves.

Like, you have a pagan master.

He has no interest

in letting you go free.

He has no interest

in letting you serve

this stupid supposed God

who died by crucifixion

showing that he's unimportant to Rome.

He's not one of the powerful Roman gods.

Oh, it's really,

it sucks so much

that you're under him.

Too bad you can't do anything.

No.

It's not, oh, too bad you're a woman

and you're powerless.

Too bad you're single,

a single woman or a single man.

That's the spectacular thing

about this list.

There's Roman citizens,

there's slaves,

there's rich,

there's poor,

there's single,

there's married.

All being used by God.

And they're all being used by God

because he knows them by name.

That's a really important thing for us.

Like, if you give your life to Jesus,

you're not saying,

oh, it's not as if,

okay, God is looking for

a transgendered person

to become a Christian.

Oh, God's looking for

an old white guy

from Canada

to become a Christian.

It's not,

he doesn't love classes.

He loves you by name.

He died for you by name.

He knows you by name.

And maybe you have,

you feel you have nothing

you can do to offer.

You come to Jesus,

he can use you in powerful ways.

I can't tell you,

he will use you in powerful ways.

Sometimes when I visit people

who are shut-ins,

you know,

I know that being a shut-in

can be a really, really, really,

really, really, really hard thing.

But it might be that God

is calling you to do

an unbelievable work of prayer.

Or of writing encouraging notes

or whatever.

And here's another thing as well.

If you could put up the next point.

The Bible read from the perspective

of the biblical gospel

is God's gift

of an unendingly healthy virus

for every society and people group.

I don't know if virus is the right word.

It's a good word

because people are afraid of the Bible.

But it's actually

Bible read from the perspective

of the biblical gospel

is God's gift

of an unendingly healthy virus

for every society and people group.

So, you know,

if you think about it for a second,

from a human being's love,

I'm going to get in trouble.

What the heck?

I'm going to get in even more trouble

in a couple of minutes.

Here's the thing.

And if you've had an abortion,

I'm not picking on you.

Jesus loves you.

And the best thing you can do

is to give your life to Jesus.

And he won't turn you away

for anything you've done.

But when you listen

to abortion activists,

a lot of their language

is the same way

that slaveholders

and proponents of slavery

talk about slaves.

It is a reintroduction

of the rhetoric

and narrative of slavery

in Canada.

The way they talk

about a woman's relationship

to the baby in her womb

is the language of slavery.

And the Bible here

acts as a constant check

to sense that there are slaves

who are making

a profound difference for God.

To sense,

and here in this text,

to take this boring part

of the Bible

and realizing that the Bible

is saying that slaves

are used to the glory of God.

That their church

is just as equal

as Prisca and Aquilus.

That they're all,

in fact,

equally important ministers.

This is powerful dynamite.

And let's be honest

about our society.

We are not living

in sexual

and political nirvana.

It isn't as if people

could say,

good grief,

it can't get any better

than this.

We're living

in a perfect society.

Everybody is sexually whole.

Nobody is sexually tormented.

Everybody has an unbelievably

wonderful relationship

with money

and with power

and with themselves.

There's no depression.

There's no unhappiness.

Well, that's not our society.

And here's the thing.

Any,

I'm not picking on feminism.

Any, you know,

whether it's feminism,

whether it's

types of different nationalism,

whether it's different,

you know,

philosophies of money

like capitalism

and socialism,

every ism

and every philosophy

and every ideology

protects,

presents itself

as the final word

that will be here forever

and it's all wrong.

Talk to some of us

old people

who went to university

in the 70s.

And if you were

a thinking Christian

in the 70s,

what did you feel?

One of the things

you had to deal with,

you had to deal with

behaviorism.

You young people,

you don't even know

what that is.

This was like

big

Marxism.

Sort of,

I know it's still

a bit at universities

in an odd form,

but a whole pile of things

which seemed

here forever,

the final word.

20, 30, 40 years later,

you don't even know

what it is.

Like in the 50s

when C.S. Lewis

was writing,

it would have been

Freudianism.

Who reads him anymore?

And yet,

it would be as if

it was the

final word.

All of these

ideologies,

they come and they go.

Some of them are helpful,

they're helpful in different ways,

they're unhelpful in different ways.

I'm not saying

you shouldn't be aware of them,

but the fact of the matter

is that the Bible

is God's word written

and presents this

constant,

silent witness

as an outline of sanity.

So now,

some of you are wondering,

George,

having said all of these things,

I have to keep in mind

my time.

It sounds,

George,

as if

all those churches

that don't allow women

to be ministers

have made a terrible,

terrible,

terrible mistake.

Now,

as some of you know,

and I'm going to talk about this

a little bit more next week,

I first came out,

don't get worried,

I first came out

in 1973

in favor of the

ordination of women

and

up until about

seven years ago

where I changed

my position on it.

And

six or seven years ago.

and

you're going to see

why,

not why I changed it

just specifically

in a moment,

but I became aware

of the thing

about more,

like at first

I supported it

really because

I didn't know

the Bible very well,

just to be honest.

Not that people

who support it

don't know the Bible

very well,

but I mean that,

but at some point in time

I started to become aware

of the fact

that there was

contradictory texts

in the New Testament.

So here's why

I'm talking about it

because this is what

we're going to look at

next week

and if you turn

in your Bibles

to Titus chapter 1

Titus 1 · chapter mention

you're going to see

the problem.

So Titus chapter 1

Titus 1 · chapter mention

and we're going to look

at verses 5 to 9.

Now remember

this is the same

Paul writing.

He's probably writing

about eight years later.

He knows that

Phoebe's a patron.

He knows that

she's a person

of substance.

He's best buddies

with Prisca.

He knows all these things.

He's quite willing

to shock society.

To talk about slaves

and women

and men

in all sorts of ways

which would have been

very, very shocking.

He follows somebody

who was crucified

which was a profound

offense

to all Roman society.

And here

he says this.

This is why

I left you in Crete

so that you might

put what remained

into order

and appoint elders.

The word is

presbyter.

I'm a presbyter.

Okay?

In every town

as I directed you

if anyone is above reproach

the husband of one wife.

The husband of one wife.

And his children

are believers

not only to the charge

of debauchery

and insubordination.

And then he uses

the word that we get

bishop from

overseer.

And he sort of

puts them

the two things together

episcopus

and overseer

presbyter

and an episcopus

and an elder

and a bishop.

He puts them

sort of together.

So they're also

bound by verse

five and six.

By the way

five and six

and seven

are a profound

rebuke to Roman

Catholic and Eastern

Orthodox churches.

If you hear

from those churches

I didn't mean to offend you.

I'm just making you

aware of the Bible.

An overseer

or bishop

as God's steward

must be above reproach.

He must not be arrogant

quick-tempered

etc.

etc.

etc.

So here's the thing.

The Bible seems

to contradict itself.

Now next week

I'm going to talk

about this a little bit more.

And so what happened

with me

is

there's a variety

of ways to deal

with one or the others

of these.

From my egalitarian

perspective

that's how it's called.

But you know

so basically

the part of the way

that people deal with it

they try to talk about

there's a trajectory

in the biblical text.

They try to talk about

that's just what they

thought back then

and we can dismiss it.

They have other ways

about saying

you can't possibly know

and there's a whole

pile of ways

to get around it

and I basically knew

that all of those ways

to get around it

were wrong.

And I don't mean

to offend people here

who hold that

but I think

they don't work at all.

I don't think

they fit with the Bible.

And so I came

to the position

where I just had

to say to myself

the only two options

that I knew

was on one hand

you had churches

that basically

didn't allow women

to do anything.

On the other hand

this other position

of women

could be bishops

and priests.

And I was uncomfortable.

I didn't know how to

put the Bible together.

And so I came

to the conclusion

which is one of the reasons

I haven't taught

on Titus in the church

for about a decade

or more

is that I don't ever

believe that the Bible

is filled with any

contradictions.

I don't think

there's any incoherence

in the Bible.

But I know that my mind

doesn't always see

the clarity

of the Bible.

The problem is

in my mind

not this.

That was my view.

And I did something

which is actually

very Anglican

in an old fashioned way

and not very modern

or post-modern.

I was just prepared

to live without knowing

because I didn't know

the solution.

And I'll talk about this

more a bit next week

but I actually believe

that if you look

at all of the texts

in the New Testament

and if you say

that God calls

some men

and only a small

number of men

to the position

of a presbyter

or an episcopist

who have an authoritative

teaching role

in the church

and no women

then all of the

different contradictions

in the Bible

go away.

And our goal

has to be

to try to find

a consistent

coherent way

to read the Bible.

In other words

what it's saying here

is that both men

and women

they can be presidents.

Men and women

they can be generals.

Men and women

they can be race car drivers.

Men and women

they can own businesses.

Men and women

they can care for children.

Men and women

they can become athletes.

Men and women

they can write books.

Men and women

they can teach.

Men and women

they can perform miracles.

Men and women

they can live lives of prayer.

Men and women

they can be used by God

to perform healings.

Men and women

you can go on and on

and on

and on and on

but the office

of elder

and overseer

are limited

only to men, but not all men.

This isn't patriarchy we're talking about.

It isn't that a woman in the church

has to listen to a man because he's a man,

but that God calls only some men

out of the majority of men

to be a presbyter or a bishop.

And I think that if you have that insight,

almost all of the apparent contradictions

in the Bible vanish.

So I've offended some of you, maybe,

but the key to this is to read the Bible

and search the scriptures.

I just want to know what the Bible teaches.

That's all I want to know.

I just want to do what the Bible teaches.

And some of you might understand,

I'm going to take a moment here,

I'm running out of time to share my heart.

That's why I believe, I've been praying for quite a while

that God would use our church to plant churches

not only in the eastern Ontario,

but across the country.

And we don't have the resources, it's impossible,

but I believe that we can pray that God would raise up

eight young men who would be married,

who could come to our church,

who could be equipped and loved and prayed over,

and that they could build a team of men and women,

no slaves or anything in our society,

but men and women from all classes,

and they can go and they can plant churches.

And I think it would be really wonderful

if that was the thing that we as a church would pray for.

And that we would also pray for a mighty move

of church planning in all the urban centers of this country,

and that God would use us in some small way

to raise up 100 young men

who are capable of being ordained,

married, building a multi-generational,

multi-gender team to reach the cities.

And I look forward to the day

that we can wholeheartedly embrace this as a church

and make it a matter of prayer

and a commitment of resources.

I just want to finish this text.

I've noticed my time.

Here's one of the things about this, by the way.

Actually, let's go back to Romans.

I want to go back to Romans.

I want to just share something.

If one of the real takeaways about this

is to search the scriptures,

search all of the scriptures,

read them widely, read them deeply,

seek to try to put them together

to get the mind of Christ,

just jump down to verse 17.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,

to watch out for those who cause divisions

and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine

that you have been taught.

Avoid them.

For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ,

but their own appetites,

and by smooth talk and flattery,

they deceive the hearts of the naive.

And some of you might think

that that's just what I've just done.

I actually struggled with this text all week.

But you'll notice it's not that there's not division,

but that it's by the very nature of false teaching

to create obstacles and division.

And it's a call for us to have our minds formed

by the pattern of biblical teaching,

the whole Bible in its depths.

And that will always cause problems

with every society that we're in.

It'll be a different problem

to different societies at different times.

In a highly capitalistic society,

the Christian teaching on the poor

will be highly, highly offensive.

In a culture like ours

that wants to promote abortion on demand,

thou shalt not take innocent human life

is profoundly divisive.

But we have to be willing

to have our minds formed by the mind of Christ.

And I realize as well

that it's very, very possible

to be completely and utterly orthodox

and serve your own appetites.

The Bible here is calling us

to search our motivation

and to search the scriptures

so that our motivation

will be to bring glory to God

for the good of the world

and that we'd be willing

to submit our minds

to the mind of Christ.

In fact, you know,

one of the interesting takeaways

because I always pray,

Lord, what is the word

in this scripture text to me?

You know the surprising thing?

All week I've struggled

to talk about this

because I want to be a people pleaser.

And I know that in post-modern Canada

of 2016,

to say that there's anything

that limits somebody

is to be profoundly un-Canadian.

And I didn't want to talk about it

because I wanted people to like me.

In other words,

it wasn't that I was avoiding

the pattern of sound teaching,

but you know what?

I wanted to serve my appetite

of being a people pleaser.

This was God's word to me.

And I know that many of you

as well struggle

with that desire

to people please

or other types of appetite.

So the text is

that we'd be so gripped

by the gospel

that we know the truth

and that we come

to that point of humility

where our desire is

to bring God glory,

to serve him.

If you could put up

the next point,

God's grace grows in me,

the self-possession

to be self-effacing

in serving

to the glory of God.

That's the big takeaway

of this text.

God's grace grows in me,

the self-possession

to be self-effacing

in serving

to the glory of God.

What does self-effacing mean?

Self-effacing is

normal,

a lot of Christian services.

This is our temptation.

Applause,

applause.

No, no, no, no.

This is what the gospel

wants us to do.

Look at verses 25

and following.

Now to him

who is able

to strengthen you

and is able

meaning that the word

underneath that

is dynamite.

It's power.

Okay?

Now to him

who is powerful

to strengthen you

according to my gospel

and the preaching

of Jesus Christ

according to the revelation

of the mystery

that was kept secret

for long ages

but has now been disclosed

and through the prophetic writings

has been made known

to all nations,

all people groups

according to the command

of the eternal God

to bring about

the obedience of faith

to the only wise God

be glory forevermore

through Jesus Christ.

Amen.

To the only wise God

be glory forevermore

through Jesus Christ.

Amen.

To the only wise God

be glory forevermore

through Jesus Christ.

Amen.

That's what the gospel

as it grips us.

God's grace

comes in

to give us

such freedom

and self-possession

that our profound addiction

to want this

and you wish

you had two other arms

because while you're doing this

the other two arms

could be asking for applause.

That we could come

to the point

where our goal

is that we all

with unveiled faces

beholding the glory

of the Lord.

We're going to talk about that

in 2 Corinthians.

Could you put up

the final prayer?

You know,

my goal for all of these things

is that we would pray

the scriptures

and this is in a sense

a way to bring the book

of Romans to it.

And I'm going to ask you

to stand.

I'm going to ask you

if you would pray

this prayer with me.

If this prayer

is at all meaningful to you

it will be on the webpage.

You can copy it down

later if you want.

You can sort of look at it

as I talk

but you know

as we're gripped

by the gospel

he wants us

to read his word

from the perspective

of being gripped

by the gospel.

He wants our minds

to conform

to the pattern

of sound teaching

but it's not just

so we can be

have some unbelievably

elaborate false system

we can go around

saying aha

you're wrong

aha

you're wrong

aha

you're wrong.

That's not why

he wants us

to read the Bible.

He wants us

to read the Bible

and be gripped

by the gospel

so we're willing

to do this

for his glory.

and not like

they do in a lot

of churches

you know

where the praise band

says let's all

give a hand to God

but it's really

to the praise band

we all know that

right?

It's really to God

so if God

has touched your heart

in two ways

first of all

if you have not

given your life

to Jesus

there is no better

time than to say

God as I pray

this prayer

may this be

my conversion prayer

I want to be

your child

make me your own

forever

and for all of us

who need it

if you would join me

in praying this prayer

Heavenly Father

please make me

a disciple of Jesus

gripped by the gospel

who so reads

your word written

that my mind

conforms to your

pattern of sound

teaching

and serve you

self-facing joy

in the power

of the Holy Spirit

to make a difference

in the world

for your glory

in Jesus' name

Amen

Father pour out

your Holy Spirit

upon us

that we might be

disciples of Jesus

gripped by the gospel

living for your glory

and we ask this

in the name of Jesus

Amen