Gospel – Page 19 – The Gospel First

Things I’ve learned on personality, power, friendship, and integrity.

Things I’ve learned on personality, power, friendship, and integrity.

Pastoring for over 30 years has taught me a lot about myself and a lot about other Christian leaders. I had a friend early on with whom I spent a lot of time discussing ministry. He was like a mentor to me. By human standards he was a successful pastor with enormous influence. I liked being around his engaging personality and enjoying his favor. As time went on, I suspected that he often played loosely with the truth. Some would even say that he was a pathological liar. Yet, he was my friend and I excused his ‘imperfection’ and overlooked it. As time moved on and my journey took me down a different theological and philosophical path, our friendship ended and I became the object of his innuendoes. Looking back, our friendship was not deep for if it had been, I would have confronted him along the way about his lack of integrity and he would have loved me even though I took a different path. Admittedly, as a young pastor I loved the presence of power and influence too much. Later in life, we pursued friendship again. I had experienced enough disappointment to no longer be enamored with personality and success, and he had suffered enough pain to be humbled. Continue reading “Things I’ve learned on personality, power, friendship, and integrity.”

A Qualified Egalitarianism

A Qualified Egalitarianism

1 Peter 3:1 “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands …”

In the Hellenistic world of the 1^st Century women generally had a submissive role in society. There was little or no sense of egalitarianism – the full equality of men and women in ancient cultures. A women’s role, not only in relationship to her husband but to men in general, was seen as having lesser value. Paul Achtemeier puts it this way:

Dominant among the elite was the notion that the woman was by nature inferior to the man. Because she lacked the capacity for reason that the male had, she was ruled rather by her emotions, and was as a result given to poor judgment, immorality, intemperance, wickedness, avarice, she was untrustworthy, contentious, and as a result it was her place to obey (Achtemeier 1996, 206).

In footnoting that paragraph, Achtemeier references Plutrach, Seneca, Petronius, Plato, Josephus, Tacitus and others. There were always women in society who resisted this role of blanket subservience, but for the most part this was the plight of woman in the 1^st Century world.

Peter speaks to wives who have become believers in the midst of this world. Along with other believers, these women are called aliens of the dispersion – people who belong to the kingdom of Jesus yet are living in the kingdom of Caesar. Continue reading “A Qualified Egalitarianism”