#599 Driscoll, Lady “preachers”, and What Women Really Need

0:00Welcome to the Shepherdscript podcast. This ministry exists to provide coaching, resources, and events for pastors and church members. My name is Jared Sparks. Join me as I talk pastoral ministry, applied theology like manhood and womanhood, political theology and cultural analysis with a little bit of hunting and fishing thrown in. I'm a husband, a father, and a pastor, and I'm here to remind you of the Chief Pastor in Arcane, Jesus. All right, welcome back. Today we're going to be talking a little bit about the whole issue that was going on at Trinity Church in Arizona with Driscoll and having a egalitarian lady preacher

1:01quote, unquote, preach the ladies of the church. And today I'm going to talk about why women need older women to teach them what is good and to train the younger women about loving their husband, loving their children, the things of womanhood. But women do not need lady preachers. There's no such thing what they do need, just like the men in the church, is faithful, qualified men to open the Bible and declare, does say the Lord. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, I just need your help in this and I'm going to be clear. I always want to be precise and concise. I don't want to drag this out. Let me get quit to the point and I pray that people would be edified and built up and got to pray that both men and the women that may listen in today would be encouraged as well. In Jesus name, amen. All right. The issue was going on at Driscoll's church where he had a lady that was there and she is apparently an ordained preacher at some egalitarian church and she was preaching for the ladies of the church. And I say preach, it's not really preaching because that is a role that can only be done by a qualified man. There is no such thing as a lady preacher,

2:03just like there's no such thing as a unqualified or heretical quote, unquote, preacher because they're not faithful, qualified preachers commissioned by a local church through the laying on of hands. It's very important. So I'm going to read what I wrote on on acts about this and then we'll just kind of go through it and I'll explain what I'm talking about. And with Driscoll, you know, I've always got a sweet spot in my heart for him because of how God used him in my life years ago. But it's funny. 20 years ago, I thought he was somewhat of a theological prodigy. And then over the years, you realize that his ecclesiology was the first to be exposed where it was weak and underdeveloped. Biblically, at least he at one point had somewhat of robust understanding of what a biblical elder is. And then that shifted and other things shifted as well to the point that it seems he's not even thought through based on his replies to some of the people who have commented on that post. He's not even thought through that that women need their preacher. They don't need lady preachers. And that category there is something that he either

3:04hasn't thought through or he's just sloppy or doesn't care. So he's far from a prodigy. But I just want to break this this quote down and go to Titus chapter two and explain what I'm talking about. Number one, preachers are qualified men. I think across the board, if you're even complimentary and you're going to agree with that, preachers are qualified men. Second point, qualified men are the only preachers women have. They're the only preachers that women have. We want to make sure we don't carve out the congregation in such a way that says the men need their preacher. They need their pastor, but women that got established way for them to grow for them to be fed isn't enough. What they really need is some supplemental preaching from ladies because after all they're women and they need to hear from from women. This is not the book way. It says not what the Bible has prescribed for the local church because women are here. We say this members of a local church as well. They are there household upon household as members together and we do

4:06household membership in representative membership anyways. And then when our children or Baptist become Christians, then they are they are welcomed into the church as well. But the whole point is that the women are members of the church. They're full members of the church. They're not partial members of the church. They're members of the church. What is a God established way for the church to grow spiritually there to be a big component of that fed by their qualified male preacher. They're the only preachers that women have. Qualified men are the only preachers. Number three, older women are to teach the younger women how to love their husband and children. That comes directly from Titus chapter two. And then finally, older women are not preachers to women. And this is what is somewhat offensive even in complementary worlds because we're saying I'm saying that the role for instance, Jen Wilkin has filled and ladies like her where they have their own Bible study that's only women exclusively women where the women go and they believe that they're getting fed by this woman. What what are we fundamentally saying in those kinds of environments?

5:12What we're fundamentally saying in those kinds of environments is that women need women preachers. But is has God said that has has God declared that has God carved out that space and said that's the role of older women to younger women in the church that all these women need to hear ladies open the Bible and say, thus say the Lord. And I think the Bible is clear. I don't think I know the Bible is clear on this. It's just a misunderstanding and it is feminism infiltrating the church. That's just the whole big picture of this whole controversy is that Driscoll and others, they have their eyes glazed over by a preconceived idea of normal that's been built into them through the Catechesis of feminism over the decades over the last 150 years. What does Titus 2 say that the women need from the younger women need from the older women? Well, it says very clearly older women likewise are to be reverent. Not slanders or slaves to too much wine. They are to teach what is good. So they are to be teachers. What is good? And so train the young women to love their husbands

6:13and children to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husband. So that the word of God may not be reviled. This is the whole point. Women don't need women preachers. Ladies that might be listening in. God's established means for you to grow happens primarily, not exclusively on the Lord's day, when you hear the word and you come to the table, when you observe baptism. When you see these things, God is their present with you building you up strengthening you and God has prescribed for the church shepherds. Under the chief shepherd, which is Jesus. Number one, all women, like all men that are Christians need Jesus. That should be universally accepted. We need Jesus desperately. Because he is our great high priest. He is our mediator, the one mediator between God and man. He is our savior. He is our Lord. He is our master. We take our orders from him. We all salute. As men we say, Jesus will do what you've called us to do. We won't do what you haven't called us to and whatever limitations you give me, I'm going to embrace and love. The ladies likewise say to

7:17their master and their Lord, Jesus, we will do what you've called us to do. We salute you. We will not do the things you haven't called us to do. And finally, whatever limitations you put upon us, we're going to embrace because God, you have made me as a woman, if you're a woman. Okay, male, female. Then under Jesus in his Lordship and him being the chief shepherd of the church, first Peter 5, God has established male, qualified male preachers to preach and teach the word, to the church. Men desperately need this. We need repetition in our life. When we come to the Lord's day, we're being discipled by other people within the church, by other guys that we're being discipled from. We need to be discipled with the word. We need to be built up with the word. And as a preacher, I have fellow elders that helped me with this. And I also learn a lot from my congregation as well. We have a really sharp congregation. And I've learned so much from the men and women of our church. But specifically, as I'm discipled by men and grow in my faith, I desperately need preachers. That's what I need. I need to sit under the authority of the preached word as well,

8:20which is what I try to do every time I preach is to say, this is for me. First, I mean, this is, I'm preaching this to God's people, but I'm a part of God's people. So this is shaping me. It's molding me. It's defining my life. It is creating boundaries. It's reminding me the work of Christ. That's what I desperately need. I need the word. I need qualified preaching, qualified preachers, qualified disciples. And this is what elders are equipped to do. And then they train the church to do that as well, where other men are discipling other men within the church and so on and so forth. The women likewise need their pastor. They need to come on the Lord's day and they need to hear a word from the Lord from the qualified God-established pastor that's over their life. He is there to feed them. This is what Jesus declared to Peter, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. This is what we do. This is what preachers do. And God has trained equipped and then at the local congregations have recognized that internal call within a man who's called into ministry. And at some point, they've externally affirmed that and they've said, yes, we believe

9:25and then through the laying out of hands and through a congregation accepting them as a shepherd of their church, that you are God's man to serve this church as a preacher and teacher of the Bible. This is your role. It's not every man in the church that's doing this. This is the role of the elders within the church. They are equipped and they are able to have the aptitudes and the capacities and competencies to teach the Bible and disciple with the Bible. This is the role of the pastor in the church for the men, for the women and for the believing children. Jesus said, but little children, he who causes one of these little ones who believe in me, let him have a millstone tied around his neck and cast to the bottom of the sea, he distinguishes the little ones who believe in me. And that's critical. The little ones in the congregation also need the pastor. They need pastoral ministry from the pulpit that's declaring the word of God to them and it's the word of God that transforms us. It shapes us. It cuts us. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. The women desperately need this, but in a feminized world within even complimentarian circles like what Drisco would call himself, they believe many of them that there needs to be

10:28this carved out space where these skilled women teachers can stand up with the Bible and do for the women what God has called those qualified men to do for the women. And women think, I need this. This is where I need fed. These women understand me. They understand the way of a woman and yet God, as offensive as he may be, has said, no, women, here's what you need. You need your preacher to open the Bible. And you need the Holy Spirit of God to bring the word of God alive to you and you need your ears to be open, you need your eyes to be opened yet again, you need your heart to be open yet again to receive what God has for you this Sunday. You need to receive what God has for you through the older women teaching you about womanhood. Not teaching you from the Bible on a midweek service or on a Sunday night service or a Wednesday gathering or something like that. This is the role of the pastor. And so it's just a confusion of categories and even people like Driscoll and many people in the, you know, even the reformed

11:34world get this messed up and it's not that complicated. Let me read this again. And I think you follow the train of thought. Okay. Preachers are qualified men. Women are church members. Can we all agree with those who are first two points? Then qualified men are the only preachers that women have. That's it. Qualified men. Older women are to teach the younger women how to love their husband and children. And finally, older women are not preachers or younger women, even are not preachers to women. Even if oh my goodness, we've got the guilt skills to do this and teach and we can talk well and in all of that, it doesn't matter. There's prohibitions there. You can't do it. And you can't do what God has prescribed the preacher to do on Sunday morning. Even for the ladies, the ladies need this from their preacher, not from older women with a Bible open. Preach the word be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and extort,

12:36reprove, rebuke, and exhort. Earlier, we're told that a preacher in the same kind of way with all authority, Paul tells Timothy, do this with all authority. And that's the fundamental difference between these lady midweek preachers. They can't even to women do what God has called only men to do. And that's that element of authority. Reprove and rebuke with all authority. This is why women may have the ability and they can put together a sermon. They can they can put bullet points together. They can put together a manuscript and some of them can even talk well, but they can't do what only qualified men can do, which is preach in this sort of way with all authority. That is reserved for qualified men. So women desperately, desperately need faithful men who will stand up and preach the word and will be bold enough to reprove and rebuke and exhort the men, but also reprove, rebuke, and exhort the women. Because this is how God has established the Church to grow, both men and women. Women, you need your pastor desperately. You don't need a lady preacher.

13:39There's no such thing. Okay, hope you guys have a great rest of your week.