Church Hopping

I was listening to a sermon this afternoon on the topic of absolute truth (or Truth if you prefer). The reference was John 18:33-38 which is Jesus’ encounter with Pilate. The speaker said something that caught me off guard. He said that Pilate committed suicide three years after Jesus was crucified. I had never heard that so being my curious self, I investigated.

Pilate does not benefit from a huge amount of ancient evidence outside of the Bible. The first reference we have of him is from the historian Tacitus in one of the popular extra-biblical references to Jesus. It just says that Christ was “put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.” There was also a stone with Pilate’s name carved in it found in the 60s which is the only archaeological evidence of Pilate with his title in the New Testament (prefect).

Then we have various stories from Josephus about Pilate’s failure to effectively deal with the religious society that was Judea. In one story, Pilate used sacred treasure to pay for aqueducts to bring water into Jerusalem. When a crowd gathered to protest, Pilate ordered some soldiers to dress in civilian clothes and sneak into the crowd. When Pilate gave the signal, the soldiers turned on the crowd and beat them until they scattered.

According to Josephus, Pilate’s downfall was when a Samaritan man claimed to be able to show the Samaritans where Moses hid some sacred vessels. When a large group assembled to climb the mountain where they were hidden, Pilate’s calvary attacked them and many were killed. The Samaritans complained to the legate of Syria, Vitellius, that Pilate was guilty of murder. Vitellius removed Pilate from office and ordered him to travel to Rome to stand trial under the emperor Tiberius. During his journey to Rome Tiberius died, so Pilate escaped judgment in the confusion.

That is the last somewhat credible source we have on Pilate. There are various later writings from the 3rd to 5th century where the stories of his suicide come from. That story says that Pilate arrived to stand trial in front of the emperor wearing Jesus’ seamless robe from John 19:23-24. Because Pilate was wearing the robe, Caesar could not say a harsh word to him. However it was later taken off of Pilate and the emperor sentenced him to death. Pilate didn’t wait and committed suicide.

While it would be a nice sermon additive to say that the anguish over allowing Jesus’ crucifixion was too much for Pilate, we just do not have enough credible evidence that this is true. I respect the pastor that made this error, so I guess I’ll let him slide….this time.

Women’s role in ministry is a complicated issue so I requested some comments from some people I respect. Read my initial post on this and then read Brent’s response:

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• Women and men were created equal, so positionally a woman is not less than a man
• However, their ROLES are different, and this is much of what Paul speaks of in his writings, esp. regarding marriage
• I do not believe women should be elders…this is made clear in different places, but the scriptures are all mentioned already in the PDF…in the original language, there are times you can tell gender differentiation, and in the passages for rules on elders, it is pretty blatant it is referring to men only
• Because, of this, I DO NOT THINK at any point a woman should be welcomed as an associate pastor, because associate pastors (including the head pastor) are ELDERS…when the Bible speaks of a woman not teaching a man, I believe it is in this context
• Which means I have no problem with a woman serving in the role of a teacher in certain contexts; what if woman gets up during the service to give testimony from the pulpit about a ministry she is a part of, and ends up teaching a biblical lesson in the process? I have no problem with this. She is not LITERALLY acting as an elected ELDER at that point, she is simply sharing truth about God in her life
• So, positionally I would not give biblical warrant to a female associate pastor, thought I would not deny women the right to teach small groups that have men in them/youth services that have men in them, etc.
• The main issue I have with the arguments arising out of this discussion is that women starting feeling ENTITLED to certain things, and thus lose what the Bible defines as their ROLE as a woman; it is not subservient, it is a glorious role; but women, being subjected in authority over time, are jumping off the other side of the wall (so to speak)

Our church recently released a statement of their position regarding women in ministry. The short version is that women are free to hold and act in any form of ministry except the elder position. You can read their extended explanation of the statement here. This is not something I have looked into extensively, but I had a general idea of my beliefs. After reading their explanation, I think I disagree with some of the finer points but I definitely have some problems with the thinking that brought them to the conclusion.

Since there are specific passages that set women’s role in ministry, we have to address those. The verses addressed by my church were 1 Corinthians 11:3-12, 1 Corinthians 14:32-36 and the big one, 1 Timothy 2:8-14. 1 Timothy 2:12 specifically says “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” This is being explained away by two lines of thinking.

1. Those verses were specific to that culture and not relevant to today’s culture.
2. Those verses were specific to that audience and do not apply to the entire church.

My problem with these two ways of thinking is where do you draw the line. What else could be culturally-specific verses? I think you could justify doing away with the Lord’s Supper since it was specifically commanded to the disciples. Regardless of your conclusions on this issue, I do not think we should be using this line of thinking to reach the conclusion. It seems to open a door to a whole new type of criticism with no limits. I sent off for more thoughts on this and had a good response that you can read. Another response I received brought out another good point

Just the fact that they write a 24 page essay about it shows a real concern to what is truth according to biblical mandates. Whether u completely agree, that is still great leadership. Most churches do not have the balls to address cultural issues of today according to what they believe the bible teaches. So kudos on the switch to a really biblical church… It seems

This is something I also have been thinking about throughout the process. I appreciated IBC’s commitment to seeking out Biblical answers to today’s question. Rumor is they spent a year going over all the evidence.

I am in no way in touch with the latest and greatest in “Christian” music anymore. There was a time when I feel I knew what was going on. I think I drifted away from it due to the declining quality (though maybe I’m just backsliding in morality). There is a bizarre trend that is going on in “Christian” music that I have never seen in any other genre or industry that I know of.

Why are artist covering other people’s songs so frequently? And I don’t just mean a cover of a hymn or bringing some classic song into relevance. I am talking about currently popular songs that are just getting sung by another artist. I have never seen this in any other genre of music. Can you imagine if Fergie covered a song off of Mariah Carey’s brand new album? It sounds weird but this is happening in “Christian” music. The only close thing I can think of in other genres is maybe when a Weird Al parody is on the charts at the same time as the original.

The song “Beautiful One” was written by Tim Hughes and released on an album of his. Then it was covered and released by Jeremy Camp and By The Tree with in a year of each other. I’ve heard similar things with the songs “Everlasting God” and “How Great is our God”.

I can understand using these songs in leading worship, but releasing them on an album confuses me. I have thought about complaining because it makes Christian artists seem lazy or unoriginal. And I could talk about how there should be plenty of inspiration to write songs when the topic is an infinite God. But really I just think this thing is bizarre.