Sunday, April 27, 2008

Why do we make a big deal over gender roles in the church?

To the guys I had lunch with on Wednesday during T4G, this one's for you.

We talked about why the T4G affirmations and denials would include a statement on gender roles when Dever just got done saying in his T4G talk that it's not a gospel issue. Well, here's some of his related thinking on the matter, in the introduction to his sermon this Sunday, "Gender Roles in the Church."

I think the key components are 1) the relationship between this issue and the authority of Scripture, and 2) Dever's explanation of why egalitarianism ought to be outside the bounds of cooperation when paedobaptism isn't.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll give it a listen. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Ben,

What's interesting in this, at least to me, is the apparent difference between Dever and Mohler on what level this disagreement resides.

Mohler's triage article actually places the issue of ordaining women on the second order. To quote him, "the issue of women serving as pastors has emerged as another second-order issue." Dever's sermon intro seems to argue otherwise, as does the inclusion of this in the T4G articles (although I still struggle with understanding exactly what those articles set the boundaries of).

I thought Mohler was the main author of the T4G articles, so it's interesting to see the (apparent) contrast between them and the triage article.