September 1, 2021 • 46 mins
In this episode, we'll dig into the foundational concepts and Bible study tools needed to conduct a thorough investigation of what the Bible has to say about women serving in Church.
Here's a link to check out the Nicene Creed, which establishes what falls into the "salvation issues" bucket.
Big concepts we touch on in this episode:
- Major Biblical themes like atonement and redemption of creation
- The 3 buckets of doctrine
- Labels and positions that are often used (and why we won't be using them)
- The difference between "exegesis" and "eisegesis"
- What does it mean for something to be true?
- Making sure that our answer to the question of women in the church includes ALL women
Sign up to receive Bible study guides, handouts, and resources that complement what you learn in this podcast by going to WomenChurchPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
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Travis Albritton (00:01):
Welcome to the women in the church podcast
where we take a fresh look atwhat the Bible teaches about
women in church, for the ICRC Iam Travis Albritton. And joining
me as always, is Corina dispay.
Hello, hello. So Corina, whatare we going to talk about today
in episode number one?
Corina Espejo (00:19):
Ah, so we preface this and trailer one, the
foundations for moving forwardas we approach the question of
what does the Bible say aboutwomen in church, and we're going
to be talking about a lot of thetools, we'll be revisiting a lot
of these concepts as we unpackscriptures, and passages. So
it's really just the buildingblocks and tools to come back
to,
Travis Albritton (00:39):
right, we don't want to come into this
conversation, assuming thatwe're all in the same place,
right? So we want to make surethat we're very thorough and
consistent and identifying thetools that we're going to be
using as we study out thesepassages. And then it's also the
context that we're having thisconversation around that this is
a conversation that is alreadyhappening in a lot of places,
(01:00):
not only within our family ofchurches, but in other
denominations, as well. So wejust want to make sure that
we're all on the same page abouthow we're answering this
question. And making sure thatwe're doing it as correctly as
we possibly can as wisely as wepossibly can. And one of the big
things that we want to stresshere at the beginning, is that
(01:20):
we don't want to miss the forestfor the trees. It's very easy
when you get laser focused onone question in particular, and
you're looking at a handful ofpassages to give you you know,
what you determined to be theanswer or what God's answer is
to that question to to kind ofmiss the broader context of the
story of the Bible. And soCorina, what's the major
(01:43):
biblical theme that that we wantto be mindful of? When it comes
to answering this question aboutwomen and their roles in
ministry in the church?
Corina Espejo (01:52):
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. The story is
about redemption for us as God'screation. And when you look at
the Bible, from the oldtestament to the New Testament,
it's going to flow to and fromJesus. So when you look at the
creation, the fall, the newcreation that talks about in
Revelation, all of it is istalking about how God wants to
(02:12):
redeem and return us Hiscreation to its original intent
in the garden. And the big partof that is Jesus, it's gonna
come back to Jesus.
Travis Albritton (02:21):
Right? And so when we're laser focused on this
question, which if you listen tothis podcast, you're probably
wondering like, can a womanpreach on a Sunday? Like, that's
the question that you have. Thequestion that we want to have
for the Bible is what does theBible say about God's desire,
his plan has designed his intentfor women and men, and how that
actually plays out in the waythat we do church today. But
(02:42):
making sure that we connect thatanswer, to make it consistent
with these broader themes thatwe see in the Bible, Redemption
of creation being really the bigone, that that's the common
theme. If you look at, you know,the Bible as a story of God, as
it relates to us. Our part ofthe story is, how do we respond,
when he reaches out and says, Iwant to redeem this
(03:02):
relationship, I want toeradicate the separation that
sin has created. And I want towalk and live with you the way
that I wanted to back when wefirst started this whole thing
in the beginning of Genesis.
Yeah. So that's the big majortheme, we're going to keep
connecting this question to, tomake sure that whatever
conclusions that we come to,that those are consistent with
(03:25):
the Bible as a whole, and thatwe're not somewhere off in left
field, getting super granularand laser focused. And like,
Jesus is critiqued to thePharisees right there. They're
contributing or offering a 10thof every single one of the herbs
they've grown in their littlewindow herb garden, but they've
neglected mercy and grace andlove. That is not something we
(03:47):
want to be said, of us.
Corina Espejo (03:52):
And along those lines, I mean, we if we're
thinking about the redemptionstory, when we think about
doctrine, we're going to reallyhave to parcel out, okay, how
are we? How are we definingdoctrine? How are we looking at
it and approaching the Bible andthese passages? Do you want to
talk about those those threebuckets of doctrine?
Travis Albritton (04:08):
Yes, let's talk about the three buckets of
doctrine. So if you're listeningto this, and then you're in the
Nash International Church ofChrist, you're probably familiar
with First Timothy 416, right?
Watch your life and doctrineclosely. And we typically teach
that as you know, you need tonot only live the way that God
wants you to live, but you needto have the correct set of
biblical beliefs of what itmeans to be a disciple and what
(04:28):
it means to follow Jesus. Andthat's phenomenal. And that's
great. And that's something Ithink, really sets our
fellowship apart. But what weoften miss in that discussion is
that there are different kindsof doctrine. And some of them
are more important than others.
And as we go through some ofthese examples, you'll see kind
of what we're talking about. Andthe reason we want to talk about
(04:50):
this first before we jump intothe rest of our study, is so we
can properly identify where thisquestion needs to fit. Like this
question of what role shouldwomen play in our Church? Where
does that fit in the grandscheme of the variety of
doctrines that we can have? Howimportant is it? how essential
is it? Is it something that, youknow, we really do have to be of
(05:12):
one mind and completely unifiedabout not only our understanding
but our application of thatquestion? Or is it something
that we have a little bit moreflexibility with? So really,
really important to understandthe context of how we should be
thinking about the answer tothis question. And the first
bucket of doctrine. This is ourline in the sand doctrine, our
(05:33):
salvation issues, right thingsthat if you don't hold to this,
you cannot be a Christian, notjust from our perspective, but
biblically, you cannot be aChristian. So what would be some
examples of salvation issues?
doctrine that is not up fordebate, not up for discussion,
we all have to be in agreementabout this. Yeah,
Corina Espejo (05:52):
I mean, the first thing I think about is the
sovereignty, the authority ofthe word, make sure that we're
coming back to the Bible as anauthority. Another one is going
to be the role of baptism andbelief, believing in Jesus and
even just making that decisionwith the pledge of a good
conscience that talks about thatit's not just, I'm going to do
this because my mom told me soright. But if it's founded on
(06:14):
lordship, and that's anotherhuge elevational concept is
Jesus is Lord and Savior. That'sa huge part of the gospel. And
so
Travis Albritton (06:21):
this, this bucket salvation issues, is what
the Bible refers to when ittalks about Beware of false
doctrine or false teachers, thatif you know anything about the
new church, in the NewTestament, there were a lot of
splinter movements coming out ofthe early church, that were
threatening the core doctrinesof the church. So Gnosticism was
one which basically said thatJesus didn't actually come in
(06:43):
the flesh. And you know that thephysical is evil, the spiritual
is, is all that matters, and wasreally leading people astray.
Another strain of the Christianchurch that threatens, you know,
really the foundation of thechurch early on was the Judy
Iser movement, which said thatyou have to become a Jew first,
before you can become aChristian. And so if you're a
male, and you're notcircumcised, you can't actually
(07:05):
receive salvation. That was adoctrine that threatened to the
church. So those are the kindsof things that fit in this
bucket of lines in the sand,that in order for us to be in
fellowship with one another, inorder for us to call each other
brother and sister, these arethe things that we must agree
on.
Hey, Travis, from the futurehere. So after we released this
(07:25):
episode, originally, we got alot of questions and a lot of
feedback around this firstbucket, the salvation issues,
disciples wanting to know, hey,what really is in this buckets?
How big is the bucket? And wheredo we find the teachings and the
things that will come into thisbucket like who decides what
that is? So I just wanted tomake this quick little addition,
(07:48):
to give you some really tangibleexamples. And lucky for you,
these are not things that me orCorina made up. These are things
that are agreed upon bycenturies of Christian biblical
scholarship. So the firstexample that I want to point you
to is Ephesians, chapter four,and in Ephesians, chapter four,
this is what Paul says, startingat verse four, there is one
(08:10):
body, and one spirit, just asyou were called to one hope,
when you were called, one Lord,one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, whose overalland through all and in all. And
so within these four verses, wesee Paul layout, not just core
(08:31):
elements and tenants of theChristian faith, right, we see
God the Father, we see thespirits, we see Jesus Lord, one
faith, one baptism, these thingsthat we have come to incorporate
into our core doctrine as afamily of churches. But these
were also things that would beused to counteract some of that
false teaching that we justtalked about the Gnostics and
(08:53):
the judaizers, that Paul wouldhave been combating against in
the early church. And so this isa really great place to start.
But then to continue to build onthat I want to point you to
something that happened inChristian history, because a few
100 years after the Christianmovement had started, and was
(09:14):
spreading throughout the RomanEmpire, the church leaders of
the early Christian church,gathered in nicea, to hammer out
and agree on the core tenants ofthe Christian faith, the things
that they would not budge on thethings that defined Christians,
as opposed to any other faithmovement. And this Nicene Creed
(09:37):
really does a great job. I thinkof taking that Ephesians four
principle and expanding it toreally paint a picture of what
does it mean to be a Christian?
What are the core beliefs thatmake Christians different than
any other religion? Okay, sohere's the Nicene Creed and I'll
leave a link to this in the shownotes so you can go and check it
out and read it for yourself.
(09:58):
But here it is in itself.
hierdie we believe in one God,the Father almighty, maker of
heaven and earth, of all thingsvisible and invisible. And in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the onlyson of God, be gotten from
Father before all ages, God fromGod, light from light, True God
from true God, be gotten notmade of the same essence, as the
(10:23):
Father. Through Him, all thingswere made for us and for our
salvation. He came down fromheaven, he became incarnate by
the Holy Spirit and the VirginMary, and was made human. He was
crucified for us under PontiusPilate, he suffered and was
buried. The third day, he roseagain, according to the
(10:44):
Scriptures, he ascended toheaven, and is seated at the
right hand of the Father, Hewill come again with glory to
judge the living and the dead,his kingdom will never end. And
we believe in the Holy Spirit,the Lord, the giver of life, he
proceeds from the Father and theSon in with the Father and the
Son is worshipped, andglorified. He spoke through the
(11:07):
prophets, we believe in one holycatholic and apostolic church,
we affirm one baptism for theforgiveness of sins, we look
forward to the resurrection ofthe dead, and to life in the
world to come. Amen. And so youcan hear those Ephesians, four
principles being dripped throughhere, right? And is very clear.
(11:28):
This is what it means to believein God to follow Jesus, to
embrace Jesus's identity in allof its entirety, and helps
describe the inner workings ofthe Trinity, how they relate to
us, how we relate to them, andwhat all that looks like as a
faith community. So hopefully,that gave you some more insight
(11:52):
into what needs to go into thatsalvation issues bucket the
things that we cannot budge on.
And now let's move on to thesecond bucket. Beneath that
bucket are what we would callsound practices, or, or sound
doctrine would be another termthat is used often. So what
would be some examples of soundpractices that aren't
(12:13):
necessarily salvation issues,but are really important to
study out and to, to payattention to?
Corina Espejo (12:20):
Yeah, one of the big ones, I think, is the
application of spiritual gifts,especially as it pertains to
public worship, what that shouldlook like, even how you should
test some of these gifts.
Another one is like requirementfor elders or what's expected of
elders and deacons andindividuals who serve the
church. And then of course,women's roles in the public
assembly is these are some ofthose things,
Travis Albritton (12:43):
right? So so these are important things.
Yeah, like for something to be asound practice means that it's
very important that we studydiligently to make sure that we
get it right. But when there isa difference of perspective, or
a difference of conviction, orunderstanding, that is still
within the umbrella of Yeah, butwe're still aligned on the
salvation issues. There actuallyis room here for different
(13:07):
applications. And there actuallyis room here for different
understandings. This is reallywhere a lot of the tension
happens. These kind ofconversations, because it's easy
to kind of elevate thesediscussions into that salvation
issue. bucket of doctrine. Yeah,right. But it's really important
to recognize that okay, if it'snot a salvation issue, that you
(13:30):
can actually believe somethingslightly different than me, like
that Kareena, and I can have adifference of perspective and
conviction and an opinion, thatdoes not mean that we can't
serve alongside one another inthe same church and in the same
ministry. But that also doesn'tmean it's not important that we
study these things out, too.
Corina Espejo (13:47):
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I think it's okay for
these things that even when weget into this third bucket of
matters of opinion, it's okayfor it to be important to you.
Without it, diminishing andbeing counterproductive to the
gospel at large. And seeking andsaving the last right seeking
and saving those who need Jesus,it's okay to differ with others,
(14:08):
as you partner to say, take careof the orphans and widows, or
even just again, coming back tosharing about Jesus and finding
that partnership and pride evenin those who claim Christ. So
matters of opinion that thirdbucket even, for example, my
favorite choice of worship,music style. You know, I grew up
(14:30):
on the hymns. I love thosehymns. People, I think, who look
at me, and they're like, no,you're joking, and I think I'm
being sarcastic. I'm like, Igenuinely love, especially like
our songbook, hymns. Like I canremember brothers and sisters in
the church I grew up with takingtime to teach me all the
different parts and then hearingthem come together and the work
that went into the I love thatother people, they're really
(14:51):
like gospel, and that is great.
You can have that preference.
And it's still not take awayfrom the salvation like we don't
have to split as a congregationand say well I can't I can't
serve next to you or I can't benext to you because of things
like that or the function ofsmall groups. What should they?
How should they operate withinthe gospel? Some people say for
(15:12):
those interpersonal others saythat's the more the main
teaching should come from right?
It's going to vary. My favoriteshould people wear formal wear
during service, like a suit andtie when preaching that is one
of my favorite preferentialmatters of opinion. But it's,
you know, people can have thoseopinions, and we still be
brother and sister in Christ.
Travis Albritton (15:32):
Right? And, and I think this is this is the
bucket, that's kind of theeasiest to identify where it's
like, Okay, are you singingcontemporary worship, hymns and
spiritual songs? Or are youspeaking in a different language
when you're singing, ultimately,that's going to vary from church
to church and body to body andculture to culture. And we
recognize that there's nothinginherently wrong with doing
(15:53):
things differently, right fromfrom place to pace. Same thing
with, you know, what you wearwhen you go to give a lesson,
right? And so if you recognizeas a leader, you know what, I'm
going to remove a lot of mentalobstacles by wearing a tie, like
there are going to be people inchurch that will be distracted,
and it will be difficult forthem to listen to a word I say,
(16:13):
if I'm wearing a baseball cap onSunday preaching from the
pulpit, I will not do that.
Right. And so you are basicallysaying, okay, like these things
are up for interpretation.
There's no right or wrong way todo that. The important thing is
the heart behind it, right? Thatwe want to worship God, we want
to train and equip, we want toinvest in one another
relationships. But how you do itis a matter of opinion. Yeah.
(16:36):
And so hopefully, seeing thesedifferent buckets of doctrine
can give us clarity, whenever wehave these kind of questions and
conversations, that the firstthought that comes into our mind
should be, okay, well, wheredoes this fits in these three
buckets? And so for the questionof what role should women play?
Does the Bible say that womenshould play in our church
assemblies, that would fallunder sound practices more than
(16:59):
likely, that it's very importantto study out, it's very
important to have a deep,biblical understanding of what
the Bible says, but alsorecognize that there is some
room for differences inapplication of what that looks
like, from church to church andministry to ministry. And that's
not a that's not a deal breaker.
That doesn't mean that we can'tbe in fellowship with one
another, or that we can't servealongside one another. And if
you didn't know that already, Ihate to break it to you. There
(17:24):
are already a variety ofopinions within your own church
about this question. And yetsomehow, we're still coming
together on Sundays andworshiping together. So it is
totally possible for that to bethe case. And so that is the
bucket that this conversationfalls into. It is not a threat
to our salvation is not a threatto our faith. But it is simply
us trying to gain a deeperunderstanding of what God wants
(17:46):
us to do, and how he wants us tofunction as a church and as the
bride of Christ, so that we canglorify and honor him.
Corina Espejo (17:54):
Yeah. And I love the way you said that, I think a
great way for you to take a stepback and ask, okay, am I maybe
approaching this in a way thatmight be unhealthy to the
unification? Not the agreement,but the unification of the
church on Christ? Are you? Or doyou feel like somebody's
salvation is threatened? Are youquestioning somebody's
salvation? Because of a soundpractice, or a matter of opinion
(18:18):
that is different than yours?
That's a great way to kind oftake a step back and say, wait a
minute, wait a minute, wait aminute. Am I judging this person
standing before God based onsomething that's not
elevational? That's a good,that's a good mind check.
Travis Albritton (18:31):
For sure. Now, now that we've kind of covered
the three buckets of doctrine,let's talk about some terms that
you may have heard in thecultural conversation in the
church conversation around thisquestion that we will actually
never use again, once we saythem here in episode one. So
Corina, why don't you go aheadand queue those up? And then
(18:51):
we'll talk about why we're notgoing to use them.
Corina Espejo (18:53):
Yeah, I don't, I don't like to use them. Some of
these terms like egalitarian,right, that both genders are
equal, in some sense, right?
complementarian. And that's onewhere they they complement each
other with different roles,progressive, and that these are
just, you know, these can meanso many different things. And
(19:13):
this is part of the reason whywe want to avoid labeling them,
right. Progressive versustraditional or conservative
versus not. Some of these termsto us can mean something. And to
somebody else can mean somethingcompletely different that there
is quite a spectrum even betweenthese labels. I do not like
using them, especially whenapproaching What does the Bible
(19:34):
have to say about women's roles?
I think it muddies the water ina way that I think it just
messes with the identity that wehave in Christ. And I would
just, I would definitely be waryand I say that for me like I
Corina and wary of placing toomuch emphasis on my self
perception and other identitiesthat aren't a part of being a
(19:55):
part of Christ. For example, youknow, feminist versus not Oh, Or
even some of these otherconcepts that I think people get
stuck in and not realizing evenwithin the world, this has a
wide spectrum of what that meansand what what you think that
should apply to our lives. Mostpeople who who do a deep study
on this issue, a lot of them whodo it humbly, and I'm going to
(20:17):
say it that way, those whoapproach it with an incredible
humility, who are unwavering intheir identity in Christ, they
may shift their position on someof these other concepts, these
other labels, which is, I think,kind of special, that's a
special thing that God does forus that he says, Hey, whatever
these other things are, I wantyou to to never, ever be
(20:38):
confused about who Christ is,and what that means for you.
Yeah, that's, I feel very, Ifeel very strongly about that.
Right?
Travis Albritton (20:47):
Well, and these, you know, they can feel
convenience. Yeah, it's like,Okay, well, you know, for this
conversation, what role shouldwomen play in the church
assembly, there's two big camps.
This is how they identify. SoI'll just self identify him,
whichever one feels more closelyaligned to my beliefs and
convictions. But the problemwith the discussion that needs
to take place between these twocamps is once you've created a
(21:10):
US them dichotomy, and said,Well, I'm in this camp, and
you're over there on the otherside, which means you believe
all of these things. Assumptionsstart happening, right? So if
you say, Oh, I'mcomplementarian. Oh, so you
believe that women are secondclass citizens in the church?
Well, no, no, no, that's not atall what I well, other
(21:31):
complementarians believe that.
So why don't you believe that?
Or a gala? terian. It's like,okay, I feel like women should
be able to use their gifts morefully. Oh, so you think that we
should that we should completelyeliminate male leadership in the
church and break down thatinstitution of oppression? No,
no, no, no, that's not at allwhat I'm saying. And so that's
the problem with using theseterms, is they have so many
(21:52):
underlying meanings. For peoplethat is not constructive. It's
not helpful, it doesn't actuallyhelp us have a conversation. So
we will not use any of theseterms moving forward. Because
ultimately, they're not actuallyhelpful. And at the end of the
day, they're not super relevantfor where we're hoping to go
that we're not trying to decidewhich camp is right. Yep. What
(22:14):
we're trying to learn is, whatis God's heart? What does God
tell us through the Bible? Whatdoes God say in Scripture? And
then what does that mean for us,in our context, today, trying to
honor him with the way that wedo church, and how we utilize
every single member of ourchurch in order to advance the
gospel, right? So that's why wewill not be using these labels
(22:35):
or terms for the rest of thepodcast. But now at least you
know why we're not going to beusing them.
Corina Espejo (22:43):
Hello, and goodbye, hello, and goodbye.
This next one, and it's one ofmy favorites to exegetical
versus isogenic. Will. And Ifeel like a lot of people hear
it and some people have neverheard it before. I think the
important thing, as we approachdefining exegetical versus
isogenic, will, it has a heartin humility for God's authority?
(23:03):
Those who approach the Bible andare constantly asking, What is
God giving me trying to pull outfrom scripture? What is God
telling me with this passage?
It's exegetical againexegetical, pulling out from
what is there, versus Isagenixwhich confession, I do it,
everybody does it, it is so easyto do, to approach the Bible
with ice Jesus. Taking what youknow what you think you know,
(23:27):
what you believe, and forcingthe Bible to fit it, it actually
happens very easily and veryquickly. So just be self aware.
Again, have patience foryourself, patience for other
people. But just try and be selfaware of your own biases and
perspectives. And that you willnaturally bring your cultural
perspective and your worldviewto Bible study it just be
(23:49):
mindful of it. So that when Godsays something different from
how you were taught, or broughtup, that you are approaching it
with humility, and you can say,okay, God, you have the
authority, not my experiences,not my life, not my and we'll
help you tease these things out,we'll bring up common eisah
Jesus, approaches to certainpassages will try and help you
through that. Just to stayproperly oriented, and to
(24:13):
prepare you and again, not tomake you feel judged, have
incredible patience, and graceand love. I know we do,
especially me for myself, as Iapproach scripture, it happens.
Let's just be mindful of it.
Move forward.
Travis Albritton (24:26):
Yep. And those words, exit Jesus is Jesus.
hermeneutics is another wordwe're going to use later on in
this podcast. Those are justdescriptions of the different
approaches that we take toreading the Bible and figuring
out how to apply it forourselves. So exit Jesus, just
in a nutshell is trying todiscern what was the original
intent from the writer to theaudience, right. So when Paul
(24:47):
writes a letter to Timothy, whatis Paul trying to communicate to
Timothy and how would Timothyhave understood that and then
from there, applying it to oursituation today? Yeah. I said,
Jesus This would be going in theopposite direction, saying, This
is how I understand the world towork. This is how I think God
should operate. So when I readthe Bible, I'm looking for that
(25:09):
confirmation. I'm saying, Oh,look, I found the verse that
agrees with what I've alreadydecided is true. So now I know
that God is smart enough torecognize my own intellects.
Right. And, and, and there isnefarious ice Jesus, where
you're very intentional aboutit. But then there's also
completely unintended ice Jesus,where you're reading something
(25:29):
with your own set of questions,and your own experience and your
own way of seeing the world. Andif you're not careful, you can
read things into the Bible thataren't actually there, which is
something that we're going toactually jump right into in the
next episode, when we starttalking about the book of
Genesis, that exit Jesus is soso important for Genesis,
(25:52):
because otherwise we can get offon a tangent, talking about
things that the book of Genesishas no interest in trying to
answer, right? Just to tease thebook of Genesis doesn't talk
about dinosaurs, you know why?
Because it did not matter to theperson that was capturing the
story of Genesis, or to thepeople who were sharing it with
was not relevant. And so askingthat question of the book of
(26:14):
Genesis, we're not going to getthe answer that we're looking
for, because that's not whyGenesis is there for us. So
that's, that's why understandingthese things is really
important. And as we go throughthis podcast, we're going to be
focused on exit Jesus, first andforemost, and then looking at
the proper hermeneutics fromthose biblical teachings, and
(26:36):
how they apply to us. So justunderstand that as a tool set,
that's the approach that we'regonna be bringing into this
Bible study, and hopefullysomething that you can mimic and
imitate for your self. Now, ifyou want to get even deeper into
the world of Bible study, andyou know how to use these terms
and how to use it effectively.
There's some phenomenal books.
The first one is called, how toread the Bible for all it's
(26:59):
worth. And the second one is howto read the Bible book by book
where the authors do aphenomenal job of breaking down
those Bible study techniques,and applying them to the Bible
as a whole, walking you throughdifferent ways of reading the
Bible, and different literarystyles and genres and things
like that, so you know thatyou're reading it correctly. And
we'll leave those links to thoseresources in our resources list,
(27:20):
which you can download at womenchurch podcast.com. So now that
we've kind of teased out x, doyou this is a Jesus, one of the
big things that you always haveto do whenever you're studying a
book of the Bible, or a passageof the Bible is the context of
that particular story or verse,or passage. So Corina, kind of
(27:40):
walk us through what does thatlook like? understanding the
context? And why is it reallyimportant for us to understand
that moving forward as we startdigging into some of these more
difficult passages tounderstand?
Corina Espejo (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, this is probably one of my favorite
things to do. Because I can findvery clear answers on a lot of
these things. Versus you startgetting into x G's, ice Jesus,
and it gets a little bit harder.
Purpose of the book of theBible, what was the situation
with which it was written in?
That's one of the contexts youcan look at, for example, you
know, okay, who was the author?
Who was it written to? And why?
(28:17):
These are some great contextsthat you can you can look up and
sometimes are clear cut answers.
Sometimes there aren't like manyauthors of Proverbs, or an
Solomon, right? And who was itwritten to all of Israel, or
everybody write it, but it'sexciting to kind of look at it
and see, oh, okay, this waswritten by these individuals,
for these other individuals. Theother thing to look at literary
style, if it's poetry, you'regoing to see a lot of symbolism
(28:41):
and not necessarily things thatshould be taken literally, but
more figuratively, then you havehistorical records that this is
what happens. And this is anaccount of something that
happened in history, or you'llhave law, or even letters, like
the epistles of Paul. And solooking at the literary style
will kind of help youacknowledge maybe some of the
minutiae of why it was written,
Travis Albritton (29:04):
right. And the whole reason that we want to do
that, that proper exit Jesuslooking at context, is so that
we don't miss apply theapplication, right? That if it's
from one person to anotherperson, that we can understand
that for what it is, and thenproperly apply, instead of
saying this was written just forme. So I think one of the
(29:25):
things, one of our strengths asa movement is we really
encourage independent individualBible study. Yeah, right. That's
something that I think issomething we do that's
phenomenal and should beapplauded. What we want to stay
away from is resting on what canbe called a plain reading of
Scripture, read the Bible and dowhat it says. Right, which is a
very simplistic way of, youknow, empowering people to read
(29:46):
the Bible. Unfortunately, whenwe do that, and we're not
properly equipped to read theBible in its proper context, we
get into trouble with all ofthat ISO Jesus, we get in
trouble with reading our ownunderstanding and interpretation
into those passages, especiallyones that are difficult to
understand. We're trying to makeheads and tails of, why did God
put this in here, if not just toconfuse us and make us wonder if
(30:09):
we know anything at all. And sounderstanding the underlying
context of the passages makessure that we don't misinterpret
the passage, right? That's goingto ensure that now, here's
something that may be a littlecontroversial here, but should
also be very freeing, when wekind of explain why it's a good
thing is that every scripture inthe Bible from Genesis to
(30:33):
Revelation is what Biblescholars recall, occasional war,
situational, meaning there's areason it was written. And it is
cultural in nature. And that'son purpose. Right? So if you
acknowledge that there's awriter, writing to an audience,
that there are underlyingassumptions about each of those
parties that, you know, when theApostle Paul is writing to a
(30:56):
church, in Ephesus, or Corinthor Rome, there are cultural
underpinnings to thatconversation. And that's
actually a really good thing.
It's actually a really goodthing, that we have that
cultural nature in the Bible,and that it is situational and
occasional, because that allowsGod to speak to us in ways that
we can more easily understand,right that we talk all the time
(31:19):
in, in local lingo. And youknow, Corina, before we started
recording, you're talking aboutyour work with teens and, and
all the words that you learn ona monthly basis and how the
language is constantly changing.
But then that allows you tocommunicate that much better to
the men and women that you'reserving, right. And so it's
actually really good, that Godhas used literary style and
(31:43):
cultural context, and theoccasional and situational
nature of these texts, in orderto speak to us in a way that we
can more easily grasp andunderstand this higher wisdom
that he has that he's trying toimpart to us.
Corina Espejo (31:57):
So comforting to me. And when we were talking
about this, it immediatelyreminded me of that Hebrews 412
scripture, and I think Imentioned it in the trailer,
right? That the Word of God,it's like a double edged sword,
but it's living an active. Ilove that, because it's true, it
can fly and be effective to atime period when there were yoke
and oxen. And then nowadays, wecan look at that and say, Okay,
(32:19):
what does that mean? What doesthat look like and have today's
implications for that, and whatthat means it looks like, but if
we read it, and we say, Oh,well, now I need to be yoked and
what you know, and then there'sconfusion there of what does
that mean? Or even I think aboutlaws, in Deuteronomy about women
on their period need to sit on ahay, and it's like, does that
apply to me? No, let's talkabout the context. Right? And so
(32:42):
it's it's exciting and freeingto know that the Bible, it's
living, it's breathing, and thatit can have a message for us
today, because it was sat in acultural context then.
Travis Albritton (32:52):
Right? And I think one of the the
trepidations, the hesitations ofhearing that, especially if it's
a for the first time isthinking, Oh, so is it just
like, is the Bible does whateveryou want to make it? Right? So
if it's cultural, if it'soccasional, does that mean you
can just interpret it howeveryou want to? So we're definitely
not saying that. Okay, so so thequestion you're getting at is,
(33:14):
what what is our understandingof the word truth? When we say
something is true when we saythe Bible is true? What is that
mean? Is it relative? fair game,whatever you want to think it
means? Is there a singularunderstanding that that we have
discovered that we've locked onto and then we're just going to
put under lock and key and makesure it never changes? Because
(33:34):
we've discovered it once and forall? Like, like, how should we
think about understanding truthand this might be getting like,
super prosaic and like out inleft field, but I think it's an
important thing to talk through.
When we talk about context, wetalk about the occasional nature
of Scripture, the culturalunderpinnings of Scripture, it
should not feel like a threat toyour understanding of who God
(33:54):
is. Instead, it's an opportunityto continue to grow in your
understanding of truth.
Corina Espejo (34:02):
It's a little romantic, isn't it? Because I
mean, like I think about mebeing married to my husband. If
he's the same always in foreverthere's nothing new there's
nothing new to learn. Or evenjust who he was, it looks the
same always right. It's not veryromantic. It's not very exciting
versus a relationship with theLord. It's exciting. There's
something about it that it'schanging and it's moving but
(34:24):
what it is it stays the same howit's applied. It's it's a fun
adventure. At least that's how Ilook at it. Not everybody will
look at that that way, butthat's how I see it.
Travis Albritton (34:34):
Right? Well, here's here's a really tangible
example that I think will helpYeah, God is love. That is true
forever and ever. Amen. If we'regonna use the biblical
terminology for it, right? LikeGod is love. That is who he is.
That is his nature, that willnever change. So then when we as
disciples are trying to modelthat love to one another, yeah,
(34:56):
what that looks like will changeright? Just click example, if
you're married, if you're theFive Love Languages book,
there's five different ways inthat book that you can love your
spouse, or other people that youhave close relationships with,
right? Each of those is amanifestation of love. It's not
that one is better than theother quality time is not better
(35:17):
than words of affirmation.
They're just different ways of,of communicating that love to
others. Yeah. And so to say thatGod is love, period, that is a
truth we can hold on to, whatdoes it mean, for us, you know,
Korean, and I sitting inJacksonville, Florida, in 2021,
to love each other, to love ourspouses and to love the people
around us. That is a differentanswer, than if we lived in a
(35:41):
different part of the world in adifferent time in history.
Right? So it doesn't mean sendsomebody some doordash because
they're feeling lonely, givethem some ice cream, if you're
in the 1400s. That's not theanswer you come up with, for how
do I love my neighbor as myself.
And so, so again, just kind ofreiterating the cultural
underpinnings of the Bible is ablessing to us. Because it It
(36:04):
allows us to, to discover theseeternal principles and truths
that we continue to learn moreand more about and go deeper and
deeper in and still find ways toapply them in our daily lives.
And then one last thing, wedon't want to beat a dead horse
here. But one last thing toremember is that we don't
(36:24):
actually know God, the way thatwe tend to think that we do.
Right that if if you were toestimate your understanding of
all knowledge about God in theuniverse, so you know everything
about God, who he is, how heoperates, what he thinks about
what he cares about as 100%,what percentage would you put
yourself out on that scale?
Right? And how far below 1% isthat number? Right? Right. And
(36:47):
so and so I think it's easy,especially if you're a leader,
if you've been in ministry, ifyou've been in disciple for any
length of time, to to kind oflook around you and say I know
more than the average bear aboutGod. So I probably know most of
the things that I need to knowabout God, instead of
acknowledging the the mysteryand and the grandness in the,
just the immensity of who Godis. Yeah. And be excited about
(37:09):
the fact that he's calling usinto a deeper and deeper
relationship with him, that wewill never reach the end of,
yeah, we will never learneverything there is to know
about God and His heart, andwhat it means to follow Jesus.
And that should be exciting tous, that there isn't an X marks
the spot that you reach it andyou finished. But there's always
more room to grow, there'salways new things to learn,
(37:30):
there's always new ways that wecan deepen our understanding of
who God is, how he relates tous, and how we relate to one
another. And that should notfeel like a threat to truth is a
foundation for our convictions,right, those salvation issues
that should not feel like athreat to that. Instead, it's
just an acknowledgement thatthere is still more to learn.
There are still things that wehaven't figured out yet. And
(37:51):
that's okay. Because there willalways be things we haven't
figured out. And that's not aproblem, right? That's not a
problem. That's, that's notsomething that should should
feel like a threat to your faithin any way.
Corina Espejo (38:03):
Yeah. And I love that. Because when we do that,
and we let God be again, God,and not us, and not our
perspective, or what we think weare going to approach this
question of, what does the Biblehave to say about women? When we
take that God's perspective, thebest we can again, we're gonna
see, wow, this question needs toencompass all women. God loves
(38:25):
all women, God loves men, allmen. And this is not just this
question isn't just as itapplies to wives with children,
right? Or women in leadership,it only applies to you know, I
don't even know what what youall think. But it's good to
embrace the what you think thatmeans. And then realize, wow,
God is looking at everybody thebig picture,
Travis Albritton (38:46):
right? Because that's the the natural
inclination. And that's, youknow, if we're honest, that's
how we've approached thequestion in the past, right? So
if we read the Bible and say,What does the Bible have to say
about women, and their roles infamily and church and ministry
in life? We kind of pigeonholeit to well, the Bible speaks a
lot about families. So ouranswer is really gonna be
tailored towards that. But then,what does the Bible have to say
(39:10):
about widows? and the role thatGod has for them in building up
His kingdom? Yeah. What aboutsingle moms? Yeah. What about
married couples that can't havekids? Right? Does that mean that
there's somehow lesser than orthat God doesn't have a plan for
them? Right. And so we want tomake sure that as we're
approaching this question, we'redoing it from a holistic
(39:30):
perspective. Yeah. Right, thatwe're not just answering the
question of how should a wife,you know, submit to her as
husband, if you're thinkingforward to the New Testament,
and raise her children andsupport a husband if he's in a
leadership role? Like that's,that's one person. Yeah, right.
What about everyone else in thechurch? What does the gospel
(39:52):
have to say for them? What doesGod have to say for them? So as
we're doing this extra Jesus,and as we're teasing out these
passages, and as we're lookingat On text, that's going to be
another thing that we look at.
Right? When we're talking aboutaudience we're talking about who
is this written for? How doesthat apply not just to women and
men in a particular situation.
But in each of these differentscenarios, and in each of these
(40:12):
different life experiences andperspectives, that is reality,
which is the real life of howare churches made up? And how
God designed for it to look,right. So we want to make sure
our answer is as holistic as thechurches.
Corina Espejo (40:26):
Yeah, I love that. And I really hope you all
think about the fullness of thatimplication, like Jesus dying on
the cross for our sins is biggerthan just asking, you know, say,
can a woman preach to a mixedaudience on Sunday. But again,
thinking about the fullness ofthe women in your church
globally, hear where you're atwhatever local church, right,
the implications for black,white, Hispanic, Asian, Middle
(40:49):
Eastern, everybody, anybody thatyou can think of socio
economically, what this meansfor women on all levels of
education, what this means forwomen, who may be considered
disabled or quote, unquote,abled, neurodivergent, I mean,
really think about theimplications for your sisters in
church. And don't just classifythem in one category, married,
not married, single, and notlike, you've got to be able to
(41:11):
look at, you know, your sistersin Christ. And as well, I think
that includes men.
Travis Albritton (41:16):
So just as a recap, because we talked about a
lot of stuff today. When we talkabout foundations for moving
forward, this toolset, we'regonna be using this question,
what is the role of women in ourchurch and in ministry, and in
the assemblies is always goingto be seated and rooted in major
biblical themes that we see inthe Bible, whether that's the
gospel, whether that's the themeof the redemption of creation,
(41:37):
and seeing that as it plays outthroughout the Bible, we want to
make sure we're not missing theforest for the trees, and that
whatever conclusions we come toabout this particular question,
we can link directly to thesebroader biblical themes. We also
talked about that there areactually three different buckets
of doctrine that any questionany discussion will naturally
fall into one of these places,whether it's a salvation issue,
(41:59):
which isn't something that wehave the flexibility of, of
arguing or you know, budging on,there are sound practices that
are important things for us towrestle with. But aren't
salvation issues ordisfellowship issues, even in
the matters of opinion, thingsthat will vary from time to time
place to place, church tochurch, and are totally up for
(42:19):
discussion? We also talked aboutthe importance of not using
labels and words that arecommonly in use around this
question, whether it'segalitarian complementarian.
Alright, I just broke the ruleseven, we're gonna talk about
it. We talked about a little bitin the summary, but from now on,
I promise, we're not gonna usethese words. But really why
those words are bad to use inthe first place. They shut down
(42:42):
conversation, they shut downdiscussion, and they really
actually lean you closer toeisah, Jesus, of approaching the
Bible with an answer already inmind, and then asking the Bible
to basically confirm the thingyou've already decided is true.
We don't want to do that. Whichis why instead we're really
gonna focus on proper exitJesus, of these Bible passages,
(43:04):
especially when they're verydifficult to understand, then it
becomes even that much moreimportant than we talked about
acknowledging the context of thepassages of the books of the
Bible, as we're setting them outto make sure that our
application is true to theoriginal intent, that every
single passage in Scripture inBible is situational, or
(43:26):
occasional in nature, that itwasn't just written in a vacuum.
But there was a reason thatwriter decided that no, this
needs to be written, and thatGod really gave them the words
to write to that audience, andthat there are cultural
underpinnings for each of thosepassages and each of those
stories, and that understandingthat culture really brings to
life the Bible, and new andexciting ways and should not
(43:48):
feel like a threat to ourunderstanding of who God is, and
what he means to us. But just towrap this up, and reiterate,
Corina, why are we making thispodcast? What is what is the
purpose of us even going throughthe trouble of laying this
foundation and making sure thatwe're on the same page about how
(44:09):
to read the Bible?
Corina Espejo (44:10):
Yeah, as we approach this conversation, it's
really important, we kind ofbreak these things down, we're
on the same page, because whenwe provide this thorough and
practical study, we don't wantyou guys to get tripped up on
some of these foundationalconcepts. So as we answer this
question, we really just wantyou to feel like there's no
hidden agenda or expectations,but that we are a people who
(44:30):
love each other who love ourchurch family, our movement and
ICC. And again, we just wantwhat's best for it as we
approach this difficultquestion.
Travis Albritton (44:38):
Right? You may be frustrated by our lack of
commitment to any one particularargument or another. And that's
actually pretty deliberate.
Yeah. We really just want thisto be a resource for you. We
don't have expectations for howyou use this podcast. Whether
you listen to it, don't listento it, tell people about it,
don't tell people about it. Wejust want To be of service to
(44:59):
you, and hopefully you can hearthat in our intent in putting
these episodes together. Butthat wraps up this foundational
episode number one. So now wehave all the tools that we need
in order to move forward andstart digging into some of these
passages that you're really Iknow, probably chomping at the
bit for us to discuss and so inthe next episode, Jason
(45:21):
Alexander, who can actually readHebrew and study it out and is a
leader in a church out in thePacific Northwest here in the
United States is gonna bejoining us to dig into the book
of Genesis, specifically Genesischapters one and two. So if you
want to get that episode, whenit comes out, make sure that you
subscribe to the podcastwherever you're listening to
(45:41):
this episode, and sign up at theemail newsletter, women church
podcast calm, you'll get emailsabout new episodes as they come
out. Bible study guides,handouts, resources for you to
use within your own leadershipteam with your church and for
your own personal Bible study.
So you just go to women churchpodcast comm to sign up for
that. We hope you found thisilluminating and helpful and we
(46:04):
look forward to seeing you forepisode number two
Welcome to the women in the church podcast
where we take a fresh look atwhat the Bible teaches about
women in church, for the ICRC Iam Travis Albritton. And joining
me as always, is Corina dispay.
Hello, hello. So Corina, whatare we going to talk about today
in episode number one?
Corina Espejo (00:19):
Ah, so we preface this and trailer one, the
foundations for moving forwardas we approach the question of
what does the Bible say aboutwomen in church, and we're going
to be talking about a lot of thetools, we'll be revisiting a lot
of these concepts as we unpackscriptures, and passages. So
it's really just the buildingblocks and tools to come back
to,
Travis Albritton (00:39):
right, we don't want to come into this
conversation, assuming thatwe're all in the same place,
right? So we want to make surethat we're very thorough and
consistent and identifying thetools that we're going to be
using as we study out thesepassages. And then it's also the
context that we're having thisconversation around that this is
a conversation that is alreadyhappening in a lot of places,
(01:00):
not only within our family ofchurches, but in other
denominations, as well. So wejust want to make sure that
we're all on the same page abouthow we're answering this
question. And making sure thatwe're doing it as correctly as
we possibly can as wisely as wepossibly can. And one of the big
things that we want to stresshere at the beginning, is that
(01:20):
we don't want to miss the forestfor the trees. It's very easy
when you get laser focused onone question in particular, and
you're looking at a handful ofpassages to give you you know,
what you determined to be theanswer or what God's answer is
to that question to to kind ofmiss the broader context of the
story of the Bible. And soCorina, what's the major
(01:43):
biblical theme that that we wantto be mindful of? When it comes
to answering this question aboutwomen and their roles in
ministry in the church?
Corina Espejo (01:52):
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. The story is
about redemption for us as God'screation. And when you look at
the Bible, from the oldtestament to the New Testament,
it's going to flow to and fromJesus. So when you look at the
creation, the fall, the newcreation that talks about in
Revelation, all of it is istalking about how God wants to
(02:12):
redeem and return us Hiscreation to its original intent
in the garden. And the big partof that is Jesus, it's gonna
come back to Jesus.
Travis Albritton (02:21):
Right? And so when we're laser focused on this
question, which if you listen tothis podcast, you're probably
wondering like, can a womanpreach on a Sunday? Like, that's
the question that you have. Thequestion that we want to have
for the Bible is what does theBible say about God's desire,
his plan has designed his intentfor women and men, and how that
actually plays out in the waythat we do church today. But
(02:42):
making sure that we connect thatanswer, to make it consistent
with these broader themes thatwe see in the Bible, Redemption
of creation being really the bigone, that that's the common
theme. If you look at, you know,the Bible as a story of God, as
it relates to us. Our part ofthe story is, how do we respond,
when he reaches out and says, Iwant to redeem this
(03:02):
relationship, I want toeradicate the separation that
sin has created. And I want towalk and live with you the way
that I wanted to back when wefirst started this whole thing
in the beginning of Genesis.
Yeah. So that's the big majortheme, we're going to keep
connecting this question to, tomake sure that whatever
conclusions that we come to,that those are consistent with
(03:25):
the Bible as a whole, and thatwe're not somewhere off in left
field, getting super granularand laser focused. And like,
Jesus is critiqued to thePharisees right there. They're
contributing or offering a 10thof every single one of the herbs
they've grown in their littlewindow herb garden, but they've
neglected mercy and grace andlove. That is not something we
(03:47):
want to be said, of us.
Corina Espejo (03:52):
And along those lines, I mean, we if we're
thinking about the redemptionstory, when we think about
doctrine, we're going to reallyhave to parcel out, okay, how
are we? How are we definingdoctrine? How are we looking at
it and approaching the Bible andthese passages? Do you want to
talk about those those threebuckets of doctrine?
Travis Albritton (04:08):
Yes, let's talk about the three buckets of
doctrine. So if you're listeningto this, and then you're in the
Nash International Church ofChrist, you're probably familiar
with First Timothy 416, right?
Watch your life and doctrineclosely. And we typically teach
that as you know, you need tonot only live the way that God
wants you to live, but you needto have the correct set of
biblical beliefs of what itmeans to be a disciple and what
(04:28):
it means to follow Jesus. Andthat's phenomenal. And that's
great. And that's something Ithink, really sets our
fellowship apart. But what weoften miss in that discussion is
that there are different kindsof doctrine. And some of them
are more important than others.
And as we go through some ofthese examples, you'll see kind
of what we're talking about. Andthe reason we want to talk about
(04:50):
this first before we jump intothe rest of our study, is so we
can properly identify where thisquestion needs to fit. Like this
question of what role shouldwomen play in our Church? Where
does that fit in the grandscheme of the variety of
doctrines that we can have? Howimportant is it? how essential
is it? Is it something that, youknow, we really do have to be of
(05:12):
one mind and completely unifiedabout not only our understanding
but our application of thatquestion? Or is it something
that we have a little bit moreflexibility with? So really,
really important to understandthe context of how we should be
thinking about the answer tothis question. And the first
bucket of doctrine. This is ourline in the sand doctrine, our
(05:33):
salvation issues, right thingsthat if you don't hold to this,
you cannot be a Christian, notjust from our perspective, but
biblically, you cannot be aChristian. So what would be some
examples of salvation issues?
doctrine that is not up fordebate, not up for discussion,
we all have to be in agreementabout this. Yeah,
Corina Espejo (05:52):
I mean, the first thing I think about is the
sovereignty, the authority ofthe word, make sure that we're
coming back to the Bible as anauthority. Another one is going
to be the role of baptism andbelief, believing in Jesus and
even just making that decisionwith the pledge of a good
conscience that talks about thatit's not just, I'm going to do
this because my mom told me soright. But if it's founded on
(06:14):
lordship, and that's anotherhuge elevational concept is
Jesus is Lord and Savior. That'sa huge part of the gospel. And
so
Travis Albritton (06:21):
this, this bucket salvation issues, is what
the Bible refers to when ittalks about Beware of false
doctrine or false teachers, thatif you know anything about the
new church, in the NewTestament, there were a lot of
splinter movements coming out ofthe early church, that were
threatening the core doctrinesof the church. So Gnosticism was
one which basically said thatJesus didn't actually come in
(06:43):
the flesh. And you know that thephysical is evil, the spiritual
is, is all that matters, and wasreally leading people astray.
Another strain of the Christianchurch that threatens, you know,
really the foundation of thechurch early on was the Judy
Iser movement, which said thatyou have to become a Jew first,
before you can become aChristian. And so if you're a
male, and you're notcircumcised, you can't actually
(07:05):
receive salvation. That was adoctrine that threatened to the
church. So those are the kindsof things that fit in this
bucket of lines in the sand,that in order for us to be in
fellowship with one another, inorder for us to call each other
brother and sister, these arethe things that we must agree
on.
Hey, Travis, from the futurehere. So after we released this
(07:25):
episode, originally, we got alot of questions and a lot of
feedback around this firstbucket, the salvation issues,
disciples wanting to know, hey,what really is in this buckets?
How big is the bucket? And wheredo we find the teachings and the
things that will come into thisbucket like who decides what
that is? So I just wanted tomake this quick little addition,
(07:48):
to give you some really tangibleexamples. And lucky for you,
these are not things that me orCorina made up. These are things
that are agreed upon bycenturies of Christian biblical
scholarship. So the firstexample that I want to point you
to is Ephesians, chapter four,and in Ephesians, chapter four,
this is what Paul says, startingat verse four, there is one
(08:10):
body, and one spirit, just asyou were called to one hope,
when you were called, one Lord,one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, whose overalland through all and in all. And
so within these four verses, wesee Paul layout, not just core
(08:31):
elements and tenants of theChristian faith, right, we see
God the Father, we see thespirits, we see Jesus Lord, one
faith, one baptism, these thingsthat we have come to incorporate
into our core doctrine as afamily of churches. But these
were also things that would beused to counteract some of that
false teaching that we justtalked about the Gnostics and
(08:53):
the judaizers, that Paul wouldhave been combating against in
the early church. And so this isa really great place to start.
But then to continue to build onthat I want to point you to
something that happened inChristian history, because a few
100 years after the Christianmovement had started, and was
(09:14):
spreading throughout the RomanEmpire, the church leaders of
the early Christian church,gathered in nicea, to hammer out
and agree on the core tenants ofthe Christian faith, the things
that they would not budge on thethings that defined Christians,
as opposed to any other faithmovement. And this Nicene Creed
(09:37):
really does a great job. I thinkof taking that Ephesians four
principle and expanding it toreally paint a picture of what
does it mean to be a Christian?
What are the core beliefs thatmake Christians different than
any other religion? Okay, sohere's the Nicene Creed and I'll
leave a link to this in the shownotes so you can go and check it
out and read it for yourself.
(09:58):
But here it is in itself.
hierdie we believe in one God,the Father almighty, maker of
heaven and earth, of all thingsvisible and invisible. And in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the onlyson of God, be gotten from
Father before all ages, God fromGod, light from light, True God
from true God, be gotten notmade of the same essence, as the
(10:23):
Father. Through Him, all thingswere made for us and for our
salvation. He came down fromheaven, he became incarnate by
the Holy Spirit and the VirginMary, and was made human. He was
crucified for us under PontiusPilate, he suffered and was
buried. The third day, he roseagain, according to the
(10:44):
Scriptures, he ascended toheaven, and is seated at the
right hand of the Father, Hewill come again with glory to
judge the living and the dead,his kingdom will never end. And
we believe in the Holy Spirit,the Lord, the giver of life, he
proceeds from the Father and theSon in with the Father and the
Son is worshipped, andglorified. He spoke through the
(11:07):
prophets, we believe in one holycatholic and apostolic church,
we affirm one baptism for theforgiveness of sins, we look
forward to the resurrection ofthe dead, and to life in the
world to come. Amen. And so youcan hear those Ephesians, four
principles being dripped throughhere, right? And is very clear.
(11:28):
This is what it means to believein God to follow Jesus, to
embrace Jesus's identity in allof its entirety, and helps
describe the inner workings ofthe Trinity, how they relate to
us, how we relate to them, andwhat all that looks like as a
faith community. So hopefully,that gave you some more insight
(11:52):
into what needs to go into thatsalvation issues bucket the
things that we cannot budge on.
And now let's move on to thesecond bucket. Beneath that
bucket are what we would callsound practices, or, or sound
doctrine would be another termthat is used often. So what
would be some examples of soundpractices that aren't
(12:13):
necessarily salvation issues,but are really important to
study out and to, to payattention to?
Corina Espejo (12:20):
Yeah, one of the big ones, I think, is the
application of spiritual gifts,especially as it pertains to
public worship, what that shouldlook like, even how you should
test some of these gifts.
Another one is like requirementfor elders or what's expected of
elders and deacons andindividuals who serve the
church. And then of course,women's roles in the public
assembly is these are some ofthose things,
Travis Albritton (12:43):
right? So so these are important things.
Yeah, like for something to be asound practice means that it's
very important that we studydiligently to make sure that we
get it right. But when there isa difference of perspective, or
a difference of conviction, orunderstanding, that is still
within the umbrella of Yeah, butwe're still aligned on the
salvation issues. There actuallyis room here for different
(13:07):
applications. And there actuallyis room here for different
understandings. This is reallywhere a lot of the tension
happens. These kind ofconversations, because it's easy
to kind of elevate thesediscussions into that salvation
issue. bucket of doctrine. Yeah,right. But it's really important
to recognize that okay, if it'snot a salvation issue, that you
(13:30):
can actually believe somethingslightly different than me, like
that Kareena, and I can have adifference of perspective and
conviction and an opinion, thatdoes not mean that we can't
serve alongside one another inthe same church and in the same
ministry. But that also doesn'tmean it's not important that we
study these things out, too.
Corina Espejo (13:47):
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I think it's okay for
these things that even when weget into this third bucket of
matters of opinion, it's okayfor it to be important to you.
Without it, diminishing andbeing counterproductive to the
gospel at large. And seeking andsaving the last right seeking
and saving those who need Jesus,it's okay to differ with others,
(14:08):
as you partner to say, take careof the orphans and widows, or
even just again, coming back tosharing about Jesus and finding
that partnership and pride evenin those who claim Christ. So
matters of opinion that thirdbucket even, for example, my
favorite choice of worship,music style. You know, I grew up
(14:30):
on the hymns. I love thosehymns. People, I think, who look
at me, and they're like, no,you're joking, and I think I'm
being sarcastic. I'm like, Igenuinely love, especially like
our songbook, hymns. Like I canremember brothers and sisters in
the church I grew up with takingtime to teach me all the
different parts and then hearingthem come together and the work
that went into the I love thatother people, they're really
(14:51):
like gospel, and that is great.
You can have that preference.
And it's still not take awayfrom the salvation like we don't
have to split as a congregationand say well I can't I can't
serve next to you or I can't benext to you because of things
like that or the function ofsmall groups. What should they?
How should they operate withinthe gospel? Some people say for
(15:12):
those interpersonal others saythat's the more the main
teaching should come from right?
It's going to vary. My favoriteshould people wear formal wear
during service, like a suit andtie when preaching that is one
of my favorite preferentialmatters of opinion. But it's,
you know, people can have thoseopinions, and we still be
brother and sister in Christ.
Travis Albritton (15:32):
Right? And, and I think this is this is the
bucket, that's kind of theeasiest to identify where it's
like, Okay, are you singingcontemporary worship, hymns and
spiritual songs? Or are youspeaking in a different language
when you're singing, ultimately,that's going to vary from church
to church and body to body andculture to culture. And we
recognize that there's nothinginherently wrong with doing
(15:53):
things differently, right fromfrom place to pace. Same thing
with, you know, what you wearwhen you go to give a lesson,
right? And so if you recognizeas a leader, you know what, I'm
going to remove a lot of mentalobstacles by wearing a tie, like
there are going to be people inchurch that will be distracted,
and it will be difficult forthem to listen to a word I say,
(16:13):
if I'm wearing a baseball cap onSunday preaching from the
pulpit, I will not do that.
Right. And so you are basicallysaying, okay, like these things
are up for interpretation.
There's no right or wrong way todo that. The important thing is
the heart behind it, right? Thatwe want to worship God, we want
to train and equip, we want toinvest in one another
relationships. But how you do itis a matter of opinion. Yeah.
(16:36):
And so hopefully, seeing thesedifferent buckets of doctrine
can give us clarity, whenever wehave these kind of questions and
conversations, that the firstthought that comes into our mind
should be, okay, well, wheredoes this fits in these three
buckets? And so for the questionof what role should women play?
Does the Bible say that womenshould play in our church
assemblies, that would fallunder sound practices more than
(16:59):
likely, that it's very importantto study out, it's very
important to have a deep,biblical understanding of what
the Bible says, but alsorecognize that there is some
room for differences inapplication of what that looks
like, from church to church andministry to ministry. And that's
not a that's not a deal breaker.
That doesn't mean that we can'tbe in fellowship with one
another, or that we can't servealongside one another. And if
you didn't know that already, Ihate to break it to you. There
(17:24):
are already a variety ofopinions within your own church
about this question. And yetsomehow, we're still coming
together on Sundays andworshiping together. So it is
totally possible for that to bethe case. And so that is the
bucket that this conversationfalls into. It is not a threat
to our salvation is not a threatto our faith. But it is simply
us trying to gain a deeperunderstanding of what God wants
(17:46):
us to do, and how he wants us tofunction as a church and as the
bride of Christ, so that we canglorify and honor him.
Corina Espejo (17:54):
Yeah. And I love the way you said that, I think a
great way for you to take a stepback and ask, okay, am I maybe
approaching this in a way thatmight be unhealthy to the
unification? Not the agreement,but the unification of the
church on Christ? Are you? Or doyou feel like somebody's
salvation is threatened? Are youquestioning somebody's
salvation? Because of a soundpractice, or a matter of opinion
(18:18):
that is different than yours?
That's a great way to kind oftake a step back and say, wait a
minute, wait a minute, wait aminute. Am I judging this person
standing before God based onsomething that's not
elevational? That's a good,that's a good mind check.
Travis Albritton (18:31):
For sure. Now, now that we've kind of covered
the three buckets of doctrine,let's talk about some terms that
you may have heard in thecultural conversation in the
church conversation around thisquestion that we will actually
never use again, once we saythem here in episode one. So
Corina, why don't you go aheadand queue those up? And then
(18:51):
we'll talk about why we're notgoing to use them.
Corina Espejo (18:53):
Yeah, I don't, I don't like to use them. Some of
these terms like egalitarian,right, that both genders are
equal, in some sense, right?
complementarian. And that's onewhere they they complement each
other with different roles,progressive, and that these are
just, you know, these can meanso many different things. And
(19:13):
this is part of the reason whywe want to avoid labeling them,
right. Progressive versustraditional or conservative
versus not. Some of these termsto us can mean something. And to
somebody else can mean somethingcompletely different that there
is quite a spectrum even betweenthese labels. I do not like
using them, especially whenapproaching What does the Bible
(19:34):
have to say about women's roles?
I think it muddies the water ina way that I think it just
messes with the identity that wehave in Christ. And I would
just, I would definitely be waryand I say that for me like I
Corina and wary of placing toomuch emphasis on my self
perception and other identitiesthat aren't a part of being a
(19:55):
part of Christ. For example, youknow, feminist versus not Oh, Or
even some of these otherconcepts that I think people get
stuck in and not realizing evenwithin the world, this has a
wide spectrum of what that meansand what what you think that
should apply to our lives. Mostpeople who who do a deep study
on this issue, a lot of them whodo it humbly, and I'm going to
(20:17):
say it that way, those whoapproach it with an incredible
humility, who are unwavering intheir identity in Christ, they
may shift their position on someof these other concepts, these
other labels, which is, I think,kind of special, that's a
special thing that God does forus that he says, Hey, whatever
these other things are, I wantyou to to never, ever be
(20:38):
confused about who Christ is,and what that means for you.
Yeah, that's, I feel very, Ifeel very strongly about that.
Right?
Travis Albritton (20:47):
Well, and these, you know, they can feel
convenience. Yeah, it's like,Okay, well, you know, for this
conversation, what role shouldwomen play in the church
assembly, there's two big camps.
This is how they identify. SoI'll just self identify him,
whichever one feels more closelyaligned to my beliefs and
convictions. But the problemwith the discussion that needs
to take place between these twocamps is once you've created a
(21:10):
US them dichotomy, and said,Well, I'm in this camp, and
you're over there on the otherside, which means you believe
all of these things. Assumptionsstart happening, right? So if
you say, Oh, I'mcomplementarian. Oh, so you
believe that women are secondclass citizens in the church?
Well, no, no, no, that's not atall what I well, other
(21:31):
complementarians believe that.
So why don't you believe that?
Or a gala? terian. It's like,okay, I feel like women should
be able to use their gifts morefully. Oh, so you think that we
should that we should completelyeliminate male leadership in the
church and break down thatinstitution of oppression? No,
no, no, no, that's not at allwhat I'm saying. And so that's
the problem with using theseterms, is they have so many
(21:52):
underlying meanings. For peoplethat is not constructive. It's
not helpful, it doesn't actuallyhelp us have a conversation. So
we will not use any of theseterms moving forward. Because
ultimately, they're not actuallyhelpful. And at the end of the
day, they're not super relevantfor where we're hoping to go
that we're not trying to decidewhich camp is right. Yep. What
(22:14):
we're trying to learn is, whatis God's heart? What does God
tell us through the Bible? Whatdoes God say in Scripture? And
then what does that mean for us,in our context, today, trying to
honor him with the way that wedo church, and how we utilize
every single member of ourchurch in order to advance the
gospel, right? So that's why wewill not be using these labels
(22:35):
or terms for the rest of thepodcast. But now at least you
know why we're not going to beusing them.
Corina Espejo (22:43):
Hello, and goodbye, hello, and goodbye.
This next one, and it's one ofmy favorites to exegetical
versus isogenic. Will. And Ifeel like a lot of people hear
it and some people have neverheard it before. I think the
important thing, as we approachdefining exegetical versus
isogenic, will, it has a heartin humility for God's authority?
(23:03):
Those who approach the Bible andare constantly asking, What is
God giving me trying to pull outfrom scripture? What is God
telling me with this passage?
It's exegetical againexegetical, pulling out from
what is there, versus Isagenixwhich confession, I do it,
everybody does it, it is so easyto do, to approach the Bible
with ice Jesus. Taking what youknow what you think you know,
(23:27):
what you believe, and forcingthe Bible to fit it, it actually
happens very easily and veryquickly. So just be self aware.
Again, have patience foryourself, patience for other
people. But just try and be selfaware of your own biases and
perspectives. And that you willnaturally bring your cultural
perspective and your worldviewto Bible study it just be
(23:49):
mindful of it. So that when Godsays something different from
how you were taught, or broughtup, that you are approaching it
with humility, and you can say,okay, God, you have the
authority, not my experiences,not my life, not my and we'll
help you tease these things out,we'll bring up common eisah
Jesus, approaches to certainpassages will try and help you
through that. Just to stayproperly oriented, and to
(24:13):
prepare you and again, not tomake you feel judged, have
incredible patience, and graceand love. I know we do,
especially me for myself, as Iapproach scripture, it happens.
Let's just be mindful of it.
Move forward.
Travis Albritton (24:26):
Yep. And those words, exit Jesus is Jesus.
hermeneutics is another wordwe're going to use later on in
this podcast. Those are justdescriptions of the different
approaches that we take toreading the Bible and figuring
out how to apply it forourselves. So exit Jesus, just
in a nutshell is trying todiscern what was the original
intent from the writer to theaudience, right. So when Paul
(24:47):
writes a letter to Timothy, whatis Paul trying to communicate to
Timothy and how would Timothyhave understood that and then
from there, applying it to oursituation today? Yeah. I said,
Jesus This would be going in theopposite direction, saying, This
is how I understand the world towork. This is how I think God
should operate. So when I readthe Bible, I'm looking for that
(25:09):
confirmation. I'm saying, Oh,look, I found the verse that
agrees with what I've alreadydecided is true. So now I know
that God is smart enough torecognize my own intellects.
Right. And, and, and there isnefarious ice Jesus, where
you're very intentional aboutit. But then there's also
completely unintended ice Jesus,where you're reading something
(25:29):
with your own set of questions,and your own experience and your
own way of seeing the world. Andif you're not careful, you can
read things into the Bible thataren't actually there, which is
something that we're going toactually jump right into in the
next episode, when we starttalking about the book of
Genesis, that exit Jesus is soso important for Genesis,
(25:52):
because otherwise we can get offon a tangent, talking about
things that the book of Genesishas no interest in trying to
answer, right? Just to tease thebook of Genesis doesn't talk
about dinosaurs, you know why?
Because it did not matter to theperson that was capturing the
story of Genesis, or to thepeople who were sharing it with
was not relevant. And so askingthat question of the book of
(26:14):
Genesis, we're not going to getthe answer that we're looking
for, because that's not whyGenesis is there for us. So
that's, that's why understandingthese things is really
important. And as we go throughthis podcast, we're going to be
focused on exit Jesus, first andforemost, and then looking at
the proper hermeneutics fromthose biblical teachings, and
(26:36):
how they apply to us. So justunderstand that as a tool set,
that's the approach that we'regonna be bringing into this
Bible study, and hopefullysomething that you can mimic and
imitate for your self. Now, ifyou want to get even deeper into
the world of Bible study, andyou know how to use these terms
and how to use it effectively.
There's some phenomenal books.
The first one is called, how toread the Bible for all it's
(26:59):
worth. And the second one is howto read the Bible book by book
where the authors do aphenomenal job of breaking down
those Bible study techniques,and applying them to the Bible
as a whole, walking you throughdifferent ways of reading the
Bible, and different literarystyles and genres and things
like that, so you know thatyou're reading it correctly. And
we'll leave those links to thoseresources in our resources list,
(27:20):
which you can download at womenchurch podcast.com. So now that
we've kind of teased out x, doyou this is a Jesus, one of the
big things that you always haveto do whenever you're studying a
book of the Bible, or a passageof the Bible is the context of
that particular story or verse,or passage. So Corina, kind of
(27:40):
walk us through what does thatlook like? understanding the
context? And why is it reallyimportant for us to understand
that moving forward as we startdigging into some of these more
difficult passages tounderstand?
Corina Espejo (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, this is probably one of my favorite
things to do. Because I can findvery clear answers on a lot of
these things. Versus you startgetting into x G's, ice Jesus,
and it gets a little bit harder.
Purpose of the book of theBible, what was the situation
with which it was written in?
That's one of the contexts youcan look at, for example, you
know, okay, who was the author?
Who was it written to? And why?
(28:17):
These are some great contextsthat you can you can look up and
sometimes are clear cut answers.
Sometimes there aren't like manyauthors of Proverbs, or an
Solomon, right? And who was itwritten to all of Israel, or
everybody write it, but it'sexciting to kind of look at it
and see, oh, okay, this waswritten by these individuals,
for these other individuals. Theother thing to look at literary
style, if it's poetry, you'regoing to see a lot of symbolism
(28:41):
and not necessarily things thatshould be taken literally, but
more figuratively, then you havehistorical records that this is
what happens. And this is anaccount of something that
happened in history, or you'llhave law, or even letters, like
the epistles of Paul. And solooking at the literary style
will kind of help youacknowledge maybe some of the
minutiae of why it was written,
Travis Albritton (29:04):
right. And the whole reason that we want to do
that, that proper exit Jesuslooking at context, is so that
we don't miss apply theapplication, right? That if it's
from one person to anotherperson, that we can understand
that for what it is, and thenproperly apply, instead of
saying this was written just forme. So I think one of the
(29:25):
things, one of our strengths asa movement is we really
encourage independent individualBible study. Yeah, right. That's
something that I think issomething we do that's
phenomenal and should beapplauded. What we want to stay
away from is resting on what canbe called a plain reading of
Scripture, read the Bible and dowhat it says. Right, which is a
very simplistic way of, youknow, empowering people to read
(29:46):
the Bible. Unfortunately, whenwe do that, and we're not
properly equipped to read theBible in its proper context, we
get into trouble with all ofthat ISO Jesus, we get in
trouble with reading our ownunderstanding and interpretation
into those passages, especiallyones that are difficult to
understand. We're trying to makeheads and tails of, why did God
put this in here, if not just toconfuse us and make us wonder if
(30:09):
we know anything at all. And sounderstanding the underlying
context of the passages makessure that we don't misinterpret
the passage, right? That's goingto ensure that now, here's
something that may be a littlecontroversial here, but should
also be very freeing, when wekind of explain why it's a good
thing is that every scripture inthe Bible from Genesis to
(30:33):
Revelation is what Biblescholars recall, occasional war,
situational, meaning there's areason it was written. And it is
cultural in nature. And that'son purpose. Right? So if you
acknowledge that there's awriter, writing to an audience,
that there are underlyingassumptions about each of those
parties that, you know, when theApostle Paul is writing to a
(30:56):
church, in Ephesus, or Corinthor Rome, there are cultural
underpinnings to thatconversation. And that's
actually a really good thing.
It's actually a really goodthing, that we have that
cultural nature in the Bible,and that it is situational and
occasional, because that allowsGod to speak to us in ways that
we can more easily understand,right that we talk all the time
(31:19):
in, in local lingo. And youknow, Corina, before we started
recording, you're talking aboutyour work with teens and, and
all the words that you learn ona monthly basis and how the
language is constantly changing.
But then that allows you tocommunicate that much better to
the men and women that you'reserving, right. And so it's
actually really good, that Godhas used literary style and
(31:43):
cultural context, and theoccasional and situational
nature of these texts, in orderto speak to us in a way that we
can more easily grasp andunderstand this higher wisdom
that he has that he's trying toimpart to us.
Corina Espejo (31:57):
So comforting to me. And when we were talking
about this, it immediatelyreminded me of that Hebrews 412
scripture, and I think Imentioned it in the trailer,
right? That the Word of God,it's like a double edged sword,
but it's living an active. Ilove that, because it's true, it
can fly and be effective to atime period when there were yoke
and oxen. And then nowadays, wecan look at that and say, Okay,
(32:19):
what does that mean? What doesthat look like and have today's
implications for that, and whatthat means it looks like, but if
we read it, and we say, Oh,well, now I need to be yoked and
what you know, and then there'sconfusion there of what does
that mean? Or even I think aboutlaws, in Deuteronomy about women
on their period need to sit on ahay, and it's like, does that
apply to me? No, let's talkabout the context. Right? And so
(32:42):
it's it's exciting and freeingto know that the Bible, it's
living, it's breathing, and thatit can have a message for us
today, because it was sat in acultural context then.
Travis Albritton (32:52):
Right? And I think one of the the
trepidations, the hesitations ofhearing that, especially if it's
a for the first time isthinking, Oh, so is it just
like, is the Bible does whateveryou want to make it? Right? So
if it's cultural, if it'soccasional, does that mean you
can just interpret it howeveryou want to? So we're definitely
not saying that. Okay, so so thequestion you're getting at is,
(33:14):
what what is our understandingof the word truth? When we say
something is true when we saythe Bible is true? What is that
mean? Is it relative? fair game,whatever you want to think it
means? Is there a singularunderstanding that that we have
discovered that we've locked onto and then we're just going to
put under lock and key and makesure it never changes? Because
(33:34):
we've discovered it once and forall? Like, like, how should we
think about understanding truthand this might be getting like,
super prosaic and like out inleft field, but I think it's an
important thing to talk through.
When we talk about context, wetalk about the occasional nature
of Scripture, the culturalunderpinnings of Scripture, it
should not feel like a threat toyour understanding of who God
(33:54):
is. Instead, it's an opportunityto continue to grow in your
understanding of truth.
Corina Espejo (34:02):
It's a little romantic, isn't it? Because I
mean, like I think about mebeing married to my husband. If
he's the same always in foreverthere's nothing new there's
nothing new to learn. Or evenjust who he was, it looks the
same always right. It's not veryromantic. It's not very exciting
versus a relationship with theLord. It's exciting. There's
something about it that it'schanging and it's moving but
(34:24):
what it is it stays the same howit's applied. It's it's a fun
adventure. At least that's how Ilook at it. Not everybody will
look at that that way, butthat's how I see it.
Travis Albritton (34:34):
Right? Well, here's here's a really tangible
example that I think will helpYeah, God is love. That is true
forever and ever. Amen. If we'regonna use the biblical
terminology for it, right? LikeGod is love. That is who he is.
That is his nature, that willnever change. So then when we as
disciples are trying to modelthat love to one another, yeah,
(34:56):
what that looks like will changeright? Just click example, if
you're married, if you're theFive Love Languages book,
there's five different ways inthat book that you can love your
spouse, or other people that youhave close relationships with,
right? Each of those is amanifestation of love. It's not
that one is better than theother quality time is not better
(35:17):
than words of affirmation.
They're just different ways of,of communicating that love to
others. Yeah. And so to say thatGod is love, period, that is a
truth we can hold on to, whatdoes it mean, for us, you know,
Korean, and I sitting inJacksonville, Florida, in 2021,
to love each other, to love ourspouses and to love the people
around us. That is a differentanswer, than if we lived in a
(35:41):
different part of the world in adifferent time in history.
Right? So it doesn't mean sendsomebody some doordash because
they're feeling lonely, givethem some ice cream, if you're
in the 1400s. That's not theanswer you come up with, for how
do I love my neighbor as myself.
And so, so again, just kind ofreiterating the cultural
underpinnings of the Bible is ablessing to us. Because it It
(36:04):
allows us to, to discover theseeternal principles and truths
that we continue to learn moreand more about and go deeper and
deeper in and still find ways toapply them in our daily lives.
And then one last thing, wedon't want to beat a dead horse
here. But one last thing toremember is that we don't
(36:24):
actually know God, the way thatwe tend to think that we do.
Right that if if you were toestimate your understanding of
all knowledge about God in theuniverse, so you know everything
about God, who he is, how heoperates, what he thinks about
what he cares about as 100%,what percentage would you put
yourself out on that scale?
Right? And how far below 1% isthat number? Right? Right. And
(36:47):
so and so I think it's easy,especially if you're a leader,
if you've been in ministry, ifyou've been in disciple for any
length of time, to to kind oflook around you and say I know
more than the average bear aboutGod. So I probably know most of
the things that I need to knowabout God, instead of
acknowledging the the mysteryand and the grandness in the,
just the immensity of who Godis. Yeah. And be excited about
(37:09):
the fact that he's calling usinto a deeper and deeper
relationship with him, that wewill never reach the end of,
yeah, we will never learneverything there is to know
about God and His heart, andwhat it means to follow Jesus.
And that should be exciting tous, that there isn't an X marks
the spot that you reach it andyou finished. But there's always
more room to grow, there'salways new things to learn,
(37:30):
there's always new ways that wecan deepen our understanding of
who God is, how he relates tous, and how we relate to one
another. And that should notfeel like a threat to truth is a
foundation for our convictions,right, those salvation issues
that should not feel like athreat to that. Instead, it's
just an acknowledgement thatthere is still more to learn.
There are still things that wehaven't figured out yet. And
(37:51):
that's okay. Because there willalways be things we haven't
figured out. And that's not aproblem, right? That's not a
problem. That's, that's notsomething that should should
feel like a threat to your faithin any way.
Corina Espejo (38:03):
Yeah. And I love that. Because when we do that,
and we let God be again, God,and not us, and not our
perspective, or what we think weare going to approach this
question of, what does the Biblehave to say about women? When we
take that God's perspective, thebest we can again, we're gonna
see, wow, this question needs toencompass all women. God loves
(38:25):
all women, God loves men, allmen. And this is not just this
question isn't just as itapplies to wives with children,
right? Or women in leadership,it only applies to you know, I
don't even know what what youall think. But it's good to
embrace the what you think thatmeans. And then realize, wow,
God is looking at everybody thebig picture,
Travis Albritton (38:46):
right? Because that's the the natural
inclination. And that's, youknow, if we're honest, that's
how we've approached thequestion in the past, right? So
if we read the Bible and say,What does the Bible have to say
about women, and their roles infamily and church and ministry
in life? We kind of pigeonholeit to well, the Bible speaks a
lot about families. So ouranswer is really gonna be
tailored towards that. But then,what does the Bible have to say
(39:10):
about widows? and the role thatGod has for them in building up
His kingdom? Yeah. What aboutsingle moms? Yeah. What about
married couples that can't havekids? Right? Does that mean that
there's somehow lesser than orthat God doesn't have a plan for
them? Right. And so we want tomake sure that as we're
approaching this question, we'redoing it from a holistic
(39:30):
perspective. Yeah. Right, thatwe're not just answering the
question of how should a wife,you know, submit to her as
husband, if you're thinkingforward to the New Testament,
and raise her children andsupport a husband if he's in a
leadership role? Like that's,that's one person. Yeah, right.
What about everyone else in thechurch? What does the gospel
(39:52):
have to say for them? What doesGod have to say for them? So as
we're doing this extra Jesus,and as we're teasing out these
passages, and as we're lookingat On text, that's going to be
another thing that we look at.
Right? When we're talking aboutaudience we're talking about who
is this written for? How doesthat apply not just to women and
men in a particular situation.
But in each of these differentscenarios, and in each of these
(40:12):
different life experiences andperspectives, that is reality,
which is the real life of howare churches made up? And how
God designed for it to look,right. So we want to make sure
our answer is as holistic as thechurches.
Corina Espejo (40:26):
Yeah, I love that. And I really hope you all
think about the fullness of thatimplication, like Jesus dying on
the cross for our sins is biggerthan just asking, you know, say,
can a woman preach to a mixedaudience on Sunday. But again,
thinking about the fullness ofthe women in your church
globally, hear where you're atwhatever local church, right,
the implications for black,white, Hispanic, Asian, Middle
(40:49):
Eastern, everybody, anybody thatyou can think of socio
economically, what this meansfor women on all levels of
education, what this means forwomen, who may be considered
disabled or quote, unquote,abled, neurodivergent, I mean,
really think about theimplications for your sisters in
church. And don't just classifythem in one category, married,
not married, single, and notlike, you've got to be able to
(41:11):
look at, you know, your sistersin Christ. And as well, I think
that includes men.
Travis Albritton (41:16):
So just as a recap, because we talked about a
lot of stuff today. When we talkabout foundations for moving
forward, this toolset, we'regonna be using this question,
what is the role of women in ourchurch and in ministry, and in
the assemblies is always goingto be seated and rooted in major
biblical themes that we see inthe Bible, whether that's the
gospel, whether that's the themeof the redemption of creation,
(41:37):
and seeing that as it plays outthroughout the Bible, we want to
make sure we're not missing theforest for the trees, and that
whatever conclusions we come toabout this particular question,
we can link directly to thesebroader biblical themes. We also
talked about that there areactually three different buckets
of doctrine that any questionany discussion will naturally
fall into one of these places,whether it's a salvation issue,
(41:59):
which isn't something that wehave the flexibility of, of
arguing or you know, budging on,there are sound practices that
are important things for us towrestle with. But aren't
salvation issues ordisfellowship issues, even in
the matters of opinion, thingsthat will vary from time to time
place to place, church tochurch, and are totally up for
(42:19):
discussion? We also talked aboutthe importance of not using
labels and words that arecommonly in use around this
question, whether it'segalitarian complementarian.
Alright, I just broke the ruleseven, we're gonna talk about
it. We talked about a little bitin the summary, but from now on,
I promise, we're not gonna usethese words. But really why
those words are bad to use inthe first place. They shut down
(42:42):
conversation, they shut downdiscussion, and they really
actually lean you closer toeisah, Jesus, of approaching the
Bible with an answer already inmind, and then asking the Bible
to basically confirm the thingyou've already decided is true.
We don't want to do that. Whichis why instead we're really
gonna focus on proper exitJesus, of these Bible passages,
(43:04):
especially when they're verydifficult to understand, then it
becomes even that much moreimportant than we talked about
acknowledging the context of thepassages of the books of the
Bible, as we're setting them outto make sure that our
application is true to theoriginal intent, that every
single passage in Scripture inBible is situational, or
(43:26):
occasional in nature, that itwasn't just written in a vacuum.
But there was a reason thatwriter decided that no, this
needs to be written, and thatGod really gave them the words
to write to that audience, andthat there are cultural
underpinnings for each of thosepassages and each of those
stories, and that understandingthat culture really brings to
life the Bible, and new andexciting ways and should not
(43:48):
feel like a threat to ourunderstanding of who God is, and
what he means to us. But just towrap this up, and reiterate,
Corina, why are we making thispodcast? What is what is the
purpose of us even going throughthe trouble of laying this
foundation and making sure thatwe're on the same page about how
(44:09):
to read the Bible?
Corina Espejo (44:10):
Yeah, as we approach this conversation, it's
really important, we kind ofbreak these things down, we're
on the same page, because whenwe provide this thorough and
practical study, we don't wantyou guys to get tripped up on
some of these foundationalconcepts. So as we answer this
question, we really just wantyou to feel like there's no
hidden agenda or expectations,but that we are a people who
(44:30):
love each other who love ourchurch family, our movement and
ICC. And again, we just wantwhat's best for it as we
approach this difficultquestion.
Travis Albritton (44:38):
Right? You may be frustrated by our lack of
commitment to any one particularargument or another. And that's
actually pretty deliberate.
Yeah. We really just want thisto be a resource for you. We
don't have expectations for howyou use this podcast. Whether
you listen to it, don't listento it, tell people about it,
don't tell people about it. Wejust want To be of service to
(44:59):
you, and hopefully you can hearthat in our intent in putting
these episodes together. Butthat wraps up this foundational
episode number one. So now wehave all the tools that we need
in order to move forward andstart digging into some of these
passages that you're really Iknow, probably chomping at the
bit for us to discuss and so inthe next episode, Jason
(45:21):
Alexander, who can actually readHebrew and study it out and is a
leader in a church out in thePacific Northwest here in the
United States is gonna bejoining us to dig into the book
of Genesis, specifically Genesischapters one and two. So if you
want to get that episode, whenit comes out, make sure that you
subscribe to the podcastwherever you're listening to
(45:41):
this episode, and sign up at theemail newsletter, women church
podcast calm, you'll get emailsabout new episodes as they come
out. Bible study guides,handouts, resources for you to
use within your own leadershipteam with your church and for
your own personal Bible study.
So you just go to women churchpodcast comm to sign up for
that. We hope you found thisilluminating and helpful and we
(46:04):
look forward to seeing you forepisode number two
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