3. Biblical Hermeneutics and Church Leadership by Larry Kirkpatrick - Scripture, Church Structure

[Music] hello it's so good to be part of this symposium I'm glad you're all joining us for this I want to talk to you about biblical hermeneutics and church leadership let me give you a quotation that just came into my email box a few days ago but in the meantime you can turn to the book of Jude in your Bible the book of Jude this is from Thomas Lambrecht he's a United Methodist minister that denomination is going through a dramatic problem right now because they have different hermeneutics happening within their church and so they have actually at their last General Conference session they basically stopped their proceedings and they decided that they would appoint a commission to help them find in a way to make essentially an amicable separation between one part of the church and the other if they can't reach another positive resolution so this gentleman is part of the part of the group that is on that committee to form a kind of a breakup plan but they don't want to call it that they want to stay together anyway this is an interesting thing because we're talking about hermeneutics this is what he says evangelicals centrists and progressives do not understand our core the same way differences of interpretation and application might mean that the court is not really unites us but only serves as a starting point for development in separate directions this is a situation in a denomination that is presently this very similar to us and that is presently involved in a schism and is perhaps going to break to pieces there are many parts in that church that are very pro-lgbt and there are parts that are trying to hold to the scriptures and so that's where they are their core and they say we agree in the hymns we agree we like the same hams we like our denominational background but we don't see things the same way and their core is a starting place from which they go so their core is not very effective as a core at this point I asked you to open to the book of Jude and so would we look at this Jude who is he writing to he is addressing what he regards as a significant matter you can see there in Jude he says that I wanted to write to you verse 3 about our common salvation I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all handed to the Saints this book if you look at it is about false teachers there's false teaching in the church Jude is coming and saying you need to contend I want you to notice that as he looks at that there are challenges early in the church and the devil is not going to leave us alone he didn't leave them alone and he certainly won't leave us alone either now after his verse three called to contend then what do you have you look at verse four first for confirms the worst and what is that that the these teachers these false teachers that he has in mind they're not out side the church but the false teachers that Jude is calling the members to contend with our false teachers who are inside the church and so that's what you have there now of course they they've been thought to be well-meaning workers no doubt they started that way and likely they continued to think they were on the right track we're doing God's work we're just helping the church and so they they want to do that they want to do what's right but they have wrong ideas it's affected their thinking and so they are false teachers in the church and they're promoting something and if you look at verse five you'll see the effect of what they're promoting because as he goes down through what does he say he's got some very strong words for them I'll read actually that that fourth and fifth verse again for certain persons have crept in unnoticed those who were long before had marked out for this condemnation ungodly persons who turned the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny now here it is and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ so you see the refectory teaching the false teaching was ultimately denial of our Lord Jesus Christ why do we resist false teaching in the church why do we resist error in the church because the end result will be that inevitably it brings denial of Jesus Christ so it's not an option and that's why Jude calls the believers to contend for the faith contend not sit contend and those can be two very different things the you and I we live in a very individualistic a very isolationist ik society lots of people could be in the same room and they're all poking their phones and nobody's talking to anybody I'm sure we've experienced that it's a disease this individualism and it bleeds into the church and so what do we think we think we are to contend alone if there's an issue in the church will it God take care of it or or I'll just take care of it I'm one person but that's really not what Jude is talking about Jude tells us otherwise God's people his people plural are to contend they're to unite and resistance toward error we are not to contend alone God gives gifts to the church into armor to oppose false teachings whenever you look at those four spiritual gifts lists in the New Testament you will find again and again God is calling apostles and prophets and teachers and leaders and and for what purpose to build up the church and to contend against false teaching look at it in Ephesians 4 when you have opportunity the gifts are there to help God sends leaders to his church to help it now there's many different gifts that are given many different offices but I want to suggest to you today and this would be perhaps with them the main point I want to tell you in this share with you in this presentation is that this isn't a time to call theologians or committees together to go and do big more theological studies to solve our problem but really God has called some of some people especially to be leaders in the church and when there's a crisis in this way the leaders are the ones that God is calling to act decisively to take care of what needs to be so what about this idea of specialists which branch of special should the church turn to in order to solve this problem of erroneous teachings some have the idea that we should turn to our theologians you know they'll help us we need more study Commission's more books from the seminary write papers line up academics and send out but the administrators and they will finesse policy and we will live happily ever after only that's wrong so now don't miss don't misunderstand me we're thankful for these leaders we're leaders and theologians and workers who have special skillsets who are serving the Lord Jesus we're thankful for them but there are many there's many truth many truly useful and not building things that that they do for us and that's good but but the trouble is that our current dilemma is not about that the studies have been going on for years and years theologians have been writing a call to write papers and asked to write them and our current dilemma is what a decision has been made when god gives the same answer three times the path should be clear faithful compliance implicitly the church agrees to study to discern to vote and to abide by the collective decision and when we don't do that there's a problem and if you are courting somebody and you ask her to marry you and she says no that that's a pretty decisive thing and then if you ask her again and she says no that's a pretty decisive thing and if you ask her a third time she probably really does mean no I know I'm sure there's people out there an exception that you'll say well no on the fourth time I said yes but but when the church collectively gathers and makes a decision it's time to hold by that decision and beyond a certain point it becomes an issue of harassment so we want to go by what the church has decided now and women's late an ordination that the decision is no times three as was already pointed out the world church three times has refused to grant authority to those in leadership among us who are obsessed and I think obsessed is a fair word at who are obsessed with the ordination of women to the gospel ministry and the church said no and then it said no and then surprised it said no again so has this led to submission to the decision of Jesus Church have those decisions resulted in uh saying oh okay the answer is no well rather there has been obstinate relentless schism there's been disobedience there's been disregard and unilateral action there have even been caused by some asking for unions to quote form a coalition against the General Conference that is not an agreement with the collective will there is RHIB a rebellion of one part of the body against another Jesus the head of the church has spoken through his church but there is a denial of his headship by his bride or at least by some Korean his bride now I want to speak about these things in a kind and gentle way and we must also be forthright as well I can love someone and sharply disagree disagree with them and that's what I'm I'm probably trying to do here I love those and I just but I disagree with those leaders who were acting against their world church I love them and I want them to change direction them direction I want them to return don't know if they will it's long we're miles and miles down this road but I do pray they will still be some who will turn when you think about this book of Jude we looked at briefly it's hard not to read the book of Jude as a reprise of the temptation of Eve in God's Eden garden have you ever thought of the book of Jude that way because what's going on as the serpent seduced Eve into disobedience with the promise of higher knowledge there are teachers today who offer the church a new approach to interpreting the Bible that is more advanced than a plain reading we Adventists like the other churches before us we can partake of this higher knowledge too we can reverse the approach that God has given us and become respectable and relevant kind of important to make sure with all those bug buzzwords apply to us but then again maybe not maybe the Bible itself is what is relevant in obeying what God says is what is relevant and going against him is relevant to and so we have this challenge we could take into this higher knowledge we can repeat the Edin mistake and reverse that approach and all it will take is some magic dust from the right set of thinkers I want to suggest to you today that it is not the task of theologians to solve crises rather God has appointed leaders most of whom have leadership experience not theological skills in particular the task of guarding his church through crises is assigned to these leaders there must be a faithfulness these persons must prove faithful God has permitted crisis to come but it is not going to be solved by a committee of even highly skilled theologians we need to realize how things actually work in the church now turn your Bible turn to the page there where you'll find first Corinthians 12 verse 27 and 28 I would like you to consider with me again one of the spiritual gifts lists so we're looking at 1st Corinthians 12 verse 27 and 28 so let me read those two verses together with you now you are Christ's body and individually members of it and God has appointed in the church now notice the numbers here he has appointed in the church first apostles second prophets third teachers then miracles then gifts of healings helps administration's various kinds of tongues now do you see some priority here this is an interesting list because it puts things in an order now some want the order I think to be first academics and theologians but you don't find that in the spiritual gifts list not one of them what we have in this get list is that teachers are third and before the teacher comes the Prophet you have prophets you better listen to the prophets before you listen to your teachers and then even the prophets even the prophets are only second top leadership who would be called the apostles top leadership are placed first in this list and the inspired author goes out of his way to clarify this order he puts actually actual the number one the number two the number three in in his writing so God builds his church if you look at Ephesians 2:20 and there's many other texts where you find this pair together apostles and prophets in the Bible God builds his church on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and please notice that they are to work together we can look today for the modern equivalent among the top leaders in the church who Labor's side-by-side in unity with each other and with the decisions collectively made in General Conference session do we not have apostles today I think we do we have people who are appointed to serve and who work in harmony with the decision of the world church which the Holy Spirit led to be what it is and those people need to come to the front and be faithful in an hour of crisis and in case you think this is a passing thing I regard this and I'm very interested in Adventist history I can go through the list of all the major crises in Adventist history and they are significant in different ways but I want to say to you that in my understanding the present crisis that is being faced is perhaps the most momentous crisis that has ever happened in the history of God's remnant Church in our contemporary not last two centuries in the time the Adventist Church has existed in a particular sense as the Seventh day Adventist Church this is perhaps the most remarkable crisis of all kicking the can down the road isn't going to help us it didn't help the United Methodist that I mentioned in the be at the opening of this presentation now some seem very interested in putting academics and theologians in first place in the list and have them work out velvety Corrections for us but we need to understand that we do not have this crisis today because our theologians have discovered new light and women's ordination and the church just has been reticent to accept that new light that's not why we have this crisis what we have here is that certain leaders decided what they want to do and then they assigned theologians the task of creating a theology to support what they want to do that's what we really have so I have here a copy of a document here from our present nad president this is dated it's a letter to the church dated January 31 the year 2012 it's a member a letter to the members of the North American division Executive Committee in other words to all the Union presidents and conference presidents and those people in our own division and he goes through and and there's this is all addressed at another place about I think the paper I wrote was east women's ordination east 60 in the wo in game that might be the title of it you can look if you want to find out about the crisis with a 60 in the viola constant in the working policy you can read it there but this is his letter where he this is a resolution of that and it's very interesting what happens in this letter in fact this is very closely related to the problem we have it in it comes directly what I just spoke a minute ago it's not that our theologians have come up with a new idea it's that there are some leaders who were working against against the church at this point who have come up with and are determined to push this idea and have assigned theologians to teach it let me read this to you so here's a page this is on page 4 of his letter I'm gonna read the whole paragraph now the first sentence is going to tell you it's not it's the very opposite of what it is so listen I'll read you the whole thing in context so there's lessons here he goes through about what happened then he gives lessons number one we need to continue to listen for God's voice number two we need to strengthen our understanding number three we need to be more intentional boy have they been more intentional but anyway this is under number two we need to strengthen our understanding so here's what it says I am NOT speaking about the ordination of women as this related topic will be taken up by other groups as directed by the General Conference that's sentence one I am however speaking of the development of a theology that demonstrates the basic biblical and spirit of prophecy foundations that emphasizes not only the necessity of women in ministerial and leadership roles but also the theological mandate that they be active in specific roles so sentence one I'm not going to speak about this sentence to you our new to develop a theology that supports this and we could go on in fact it does go on and there's some very interesting thing interesting things in this letter he says the time has now come for us to become more practical in our application of philosophy and belief you see there is a philosophy and belief involved in supporting and sustaining women's ordination there's a belief in it it's the whole system and he also says we must become more intentional we we must develop intentional methods of mentoring women who can take on executive leadership positions within our conferences that's women in ordained positions that's only for an ordained individual and then he says down the page we must continue to move this matter forward throughout the North American division in the belief that God will continue to guide his church to the ultimate achievement of his mission on earth see push it forward push it push it push it and asked what you have and actually there was an interesting item here somewhere that I would also bring to your to it all I can't find it at the moment about how the ENAD has be here it is this is page 3 of the same document and reading it from 2017 is interesting because it was written in 2012 here's what he said he's talking about the e60 matter could it be that the e60 matter was allowed to make the progress it did to clarify decisively the thinking and beliefs of the members of the church in north america on the role of women and ministry and leadership perhaps it has made the issue so obviously we can now develop our thinking with far more clarity and power than ever before so again I'm pointing out to you that this is something that has been pushed and the theologians were assigned to develop a theology so many times that's that's the way it is it's not that the theologian is the driver but he's the passenger they're asked to develop theological justifications in the support of decisions that are already made now we need to keep in mind that there are justifications which are consistent with Scripture in which do reflect in outline what actually is in Scripture there is it's valid there are things that are very valid in a theologian that could be the Lord could be working through people and giving them special gifts to help us under stand through their work but there are also those who make the best arguments they can for that which is not in Scripture they read into God's Word what is not there and then they proclaim that it is there that happens you think it just it just doesn't happen in our church it's like you know all these people if somebody gets shot you hear it on the news somebody shot and then they interview the person oh that was my person was a nice nice neighbor great person never never had this problem and they couldn't be him it was it wasn't him or there's a case of sex offense that happens somebody some tragic thing happens but well we all know that person that person there's no sex offenders in my community there's nobody like that and that person couldn't be that person you know what there are teachers that are misguided and who are wrong who are in our church it does happen and it's not always something that's outside and somewhere else so nad leadership wanted theological justification for the practice of women's ordination now in 1998 the seminary book women in ministry came out and it failed to deliver the persuasive arguments I would happen to be at seminary at that time and I knew perhaps all or most of the authors in that book interesting talks about it so what happened now did we go down the road to 2012 while the NAD president made a new call for such a theology and I just read it to you we need to develop a theology the supports da da da da da so then in 2014 the North American division section of the theology of ordination Study Committee also delivered to the NAD Tosk a report which is the latest attempt and so hundreds of pages were handed over to the GC toss committee and several papers were provided in a motion and so then we come to the vote and I want you to realize that when the vote happened in San Antonio in 2015 that there was not just the motion but there was kind of a preamble and all everybody who considered the vote was to think about it this way I will quote it to you after your prayerful study and ordination from the Bible the writings of Ellen White and the reports of the study commissions and after your careful consideration of what is best for the church in the fulfillment of its mission is it acceptable for division executive committees as they may deem it appropriate their territories to make provision for the ordination of women to the gospel ministry yes or no that was what was voted about in San Antonio and we know the answer the delegates voted the NAD theology that had been developed was rejected by the church and a decision was made so now in this case the Church appointed its members theologians and lay members to study then it decided and when this has happened when this process has been accomplished leaders need to lead we need to lead onward you go forward now today is August 2 2017 we are not in the first nor the second but we are in the third year after the San Antonio decision not to grant subsections of the church authority to ordain women the duty of leaders now is to lead us forward we need to contend for the faith that God has delivered to us and make no mistake the San Antonio decision is a part of the faith that God has delivered to us leadership is duty-bound to support the decision made and if we can't do that I guess we need new leaders it's just very simple when you really get down to it we're not in a does a study phase we're really not in a discerning phase and we're not we don't have we the decision has been made and not once not just twice three times it's time to move on the third angel's message is there how much energy has been spent on this it could have been spent proclaiming the third angel's message we need to move on and our leaders need to move on in the court I gave you from the United Methodist Church that church is absolutely stuck their leaders are paralyzed they're splitting they're not even obeying their Church of discipline which is equivalent to offer to us as our church manual they're not they're just completely split and are ready to completely split apart do we want to go to that place I don't know how far we are from that we need to move forward and move forward now you know it's relentless the way this has been pushed this women's ordination issue in the church many people might not be aware of some of the history to it I have here in my hand a document from 1990 97 this is the President's Commission on women in ministry report you can find these documents in fact we downloaded this a few minutes ago from ordination truth website if you do a search for this you'll find the same document in the dan Jackson letter as well it's in there and we downloaded that so what do we have here this is this is a set of decisions that were made back way back again in 1997 right after the 1995 general conference rejected women's ordination so this is right after a number of time number two but I want you to know here some of the things that have been happening at some of the plans they had at that time and now here we are again from 1997 and this is 2017 right so how long is have these things been happening I'm just gonna give you a sample of these they want the NAD this is why they want to increase the ordination of women that the attraction that that would have so do you want to extend it for your internship budget instead of usually three-year in other words that when a new minister comes in the seminary there's there's extra money for seminary interns they want to give more money for a lady interns here's another one the NAD requests local conferences to set realistic goals to increase the number of women in pastoral ministry in their field during the next three years I don't think that has probably stopped here's C item C under number seven the avenues that Adventist colleges and universities in North America be encouraged to recruit young women you know for this women's ministry women's ordination type pastoral ministry here's another one recommended that conferences be encouraged to invite women to speak during the sabbath morning worship services and other general sessions at camp meetings published profiles of women serving in pastoral ministry several times a year in our magazines multiple exposures be given to models of gift based ministry taking place in congregations throughout the nad concrete portrayal and affirmation of women and ministry in direct portrayal of women with men and creative approaches to pastoral ministry so if you see a picture in ministry magazine or the adventist review denominational publications your union paper you see a picture you know if you look go back and look at your pictures you'll often find pictures of women alongside with men not that that's an evil thing but if it's if it's a propaganda thing then I have some problems with it use of both print and video mediate media recommended that each conference and union in the NAD set realistic goals for diversity on boards committees and staff reflective of the gender and other diversity present among its membership multiple articles and denominational periodicals a hermeneutics conference sponsored by the NAD the advocacy that more of the advocacy for women in ministry be channeled through Union papers and other media mass media for mass distribution and on it goes one more here the u n-- a they voted that they want the nad to produce an endorsed only gender inclusive resource materials only and the division president issue would clear call for that to the church for gender inclusiveness at all levels of the church boards committees pastoral assignments and so on this has been happening for years and again we're not necessarily we're not necessarily opposed to we're not opposed to women serving in a proper way of ministry but to force them into the place of the ordained elder position of being a minister is again not supported I think by the Scriptures so these leaders don't have a consensus in favor of ordaining women in North America because maybe you'll say well they've been leading at least they've been leading nobody else is leading well there are others who are leading and they have a challenging task but the prolems ordination people are certainly pushing and pushing along and so you have things like these two documents I've just shared with you some excerpts from this is a long-term thing they decided what they're going to do the assign that theologians the task of supporting it and those things are present now so that I want to say though that the problem is that they're not really leading because there's not a consensus in North America in favor of women's ordination there is I think there are many in leadership who were very much in favor of women's ordination but the whole church itself I don't think how it shares that viewpoint I have a book I just received this is just I didn't receive it I bought it this came in from Amazon just before he came down here and I've basically finished reading it this is about the United Methodist Church this is called the rise of theological liberalism and the decline of American Methodism by James V hiding her in the second this isn't heidegger of philosophical this is a different person and this book was just published here not not long ago I want to read to you too short items here because again the United Methodist Church is very much of a parallel to our church in fact one of my professors at seminary told it told me that he thought women's ordination was going to work out the same for us as it did for United Methodists because we're so like them in so many respects we have conferences they have conferences many of our organizational pieces are very similar and so this is what the William Abraham says in the foreword they're talking about the problem in Methodism all the historic mainline denominations in North America are facing the same challenge all have been infected by the same virus with familiar feverish symptoms membership loss lack of spiritual vitality loss of the authority of Scripture doctrinal confusion and even abdication bureaucratic domination pro homosexual activism and the embracing of trendy non-orthodox theologies of course that's not us but it sure sounds a lot like us and he says that every mainline denomination in North America has is infected with that virus now you and I all know we know that the United the seventh-day Adventist Church is not a mainline denomination but as the mainline denominations are are shrinking and losing membership at a remarkable rate the United Methodist Church has lost membership every year for 44 years can you imagine that I think it's actually 45 years now but their church is shrinking and they have doctrine controversy and you already heard they don't really have a core they don't know what they have a core but it's it's a starting place but another state essentially doesn't function as a core well I want to suggest to you and I'm sad to do so but I'm suggesting to you that the seventh-day Adventist Church has been infected by the same virus and if you're infected by a virus and you don't do anything about it I think there are medical outcomes that may event now here's an interesting piece to this that might give you some hope but let me read this is from page 7 from the author and I thought this there's this is paralleled Adventism I think as well so here's what he says I'm skipping tons of stuff he's talking about the Methodist Church the doctrinal changes taking place during this era he's talking about the that a 1880s to 1929 they would soon be accepted and institutionalized by the leadership bureaucracy and educational institutions of the Methodist Episcopal Church became the United Methodist Church they were not however understood or affirmed by the preponderance of Methodist members and local churches across the land you see there was a great movement to social gospel and these things that happened in that period from 1880 to 1930 and you and I have heard many times the word fundamentalism referred to more it more or less as a swear word if you believe if you're a fundamentalist you're a bad person and in the Adventist Church in the in the official print in publications we usually hear about fundamentalism in that way well why did fundamentalism arise because in that same period there was a rise of previous to that and coming up to the time there was a rise of higher critical historical critical method ology and that led to a reaction and you have the fundamentalist reaction and I'm not supporting everything about fundamentalism there is to support but why don't we ever hear about the reason that there was such a thing as fundamentalism why don't we hear about the rise of higher critical assumptions that's what split the United Methodist Church but guess what the by and large the church did not the members didn't embrace it it was the the leadership and the theologians the bureaucracy of the church and so there's a great divide between those two in Methodism I have to suggest to you today that in North America there's a great divide rather similarly in the seventh-day Adventist Church between our members in the pews and our theologians in our seminary in our in our different schools so that's what we have here so this is been pushed and pushed and pushed and not only did North America does not doesn't does it does not have a consensus but also they don't have the authority to do this because in the seventh-day Adventist Church ordination has always been at the level of the GC sets the criteria it's never been set by a conference but they want to usurp the GC and set their own criteria what would it drive people to attempt to usurp Authority what would drive you to do that the title of this talk you saw the phrase in that title biblical hermeneutics so I know this is not a symposium on hermeneutics but one of the parameters of the present situation is that some promoting women's ordination have admitted that they have to use a different hermeneutical approach in order to support their teaching hermeneutics remember means the approach we take toward biblical interpretation seventh-day adventist carrying forward the biblical protestant the protestant heritage seek to divide our plan for to derive our plan for interpreting the Bible from the Bible itself we seek to let scripture interpret Scripture we do not ask lawyers and theologians to interpret the scripture on the basis of tradition or sophistry that's not our plan we choose not to follow what became liberal Protestantism which interprets Scripture on the basis of critical assumptions brought from outside God's book to God's book so let's talk for a minute about some of those liberal if we want to use that word liberal assumptions or at least critical assumptions that came to be because those are affecting us still today the anti supernaturalism that's part of the higher critical approach we look today we use human reason the Bible is is culturally conditioned so that when Paul writes about something if Paul writes about women shouldn't be in a position of leadership while that is you know Paul was culturally conditioned that means he was impacted and affected by his culture and so his ideas could leak in in fact not could leak but would leak every writers ideas would leak into the Bible Holy Spirit would not prevent or for that and so the Bible then is a mixture of God's ideas that he inspired his prophets and Bible writers to have a mixture of that with human ideas and there's not even any corrective for if you say the wrong thing like I'm a preacher I'm not a prophet and I may say something that that would be good to be edited out I may make a misstatement there's no guarantee that I would speak to you and am i speaking would be perfect hopefully I say the right things but you don't trust me in that regard if I was a prophet or a Bible writer you would trust me very strongly that the Holy Spirit II is leading and you would want to treat that carefully what has happened with the higher critical approach is that you have you begin with doubt instead of faith you begin by doubting all things and so you begin by doubting the Word of God because it's really the word of men it's word the word of men only and so Paul's ideas may have crept in into the Bible Moses ideas must have crept in there and he was probably biased by his culture and so everybody's culturally conditioned but the critical point is is not that it is not that so much the critical point is that the Holy Spirit doesn't protect for it so that we have to in the end say with those that the Bible itself is culturally conditioned so basically everything in the Bible becomes take-it-or-leave-it and how do we solve it we don't have a Pope like the Catholic Church so what do we have well we have academics and theologians and they solve it for us I'm not sure what the answer is but so and so's the professor biblical languages we'll talk to him we get his word and we're done and that is still a little bit on the papal side if you ask me our plan and the plan that God has given us is to let the scripture interpret itself and that's what we need to be doing do you know that no enduring heaven lead church begins its work with multiple mutually exclusive hermeneutical systems named to me a church a God led church which began and they had they had six different hermeneutics homra digital systems they would use you won't find one there isn't one there's not one on planet earth a growing denomination generally has one approach to interpretation a dying Church might have many and you know what when you have that then there are calls for unity in diversity but what actually is sought for is diversity in diversity virtually no one sits down with a list of rules of interpretation and prepares his sermon or his theological paper or his talk checking every line against that list of rules that's just not the way it's done if you begin rather hermeneutics it's more like a package right it's a set of pre commitments hermeneutics is a set of presuppositions that the interpreter brings to the text it's about how you approach the Bible it's about how you begin what do I bring with me when I open the pages of Scripture what is my assumption I'm reading from the book of Jude well okay Jude was human Jude is surely culturally conditioned his writing is probably filled with his own biases there and what he regards as a false teaching might be just fine you know he just was a little bit behind the curve and God's Holy Spirit didn't do anything particularly here so we can basically take or leave whatever Jude has to say or any other part of the Bible I like this line I don't like that line and that's a little bit like the higher critical method isn't it take it or leave it it all works out the same in the end I tell you no church no viable working church ever began with multiple hermeneutics and thrived any God led Church always had one kind of approach to interpretation virtually no one sits down with a list what we do is we bring these things with us when we approach the Bible it's all about where you begin and that's why we have a problem in the church about hermeneutics it's about where we begin because where we begin will affect where we end and if we begin with certain assumptions we will end with certain assumptions almost for sure where you begin with the text determines where you take it if you begin with the belief that the soul is immortal you'll read the passages about Hell not as a fire that consumes but as a place of endless torture if you believe that the church has the authority to change God's commands then you will approach the SAP Sunday question differently than if you see the 10 commandments as God's unchanging law do we realize how significant hermeneutics are you see a different hermeneutical system results in a different belief and a different belief results in a different practice different practices result in the development of a different church is that too complicated and so when you tell me you're using a different hermeneutic than the Bible approach long adopted by the Adventist Church you are telling me that you are a different church or that you are engaged in activities likely either to spawn a different body or remix the one that already exists when you bring and start adding hermeneutics one of the things that I found interesting and one of the chapters in this book I was talking about the the Methodist approach in the years from 1900 on the Methodists approach to pluralism they decided that that there was there was a lot of conflict in their church again and again over these things as the new thinking and the older thinking clashed and they decided that they were a non doctrinal Church and they even had a statement at one point that had said stated proudly that they were pluralistic in their hermeneutics and then we come to the place where I read you the first statement today we have a core but you know we it doesn't really do anything for us we're just in great disagreement all around the way and so what you have is this great divide because you have different hermeneutics as pastors Scaroni shared with us this is really ultimately at the baseline it's a hermeneutic problem if we want to have multiple hermeneutics if we want to have pluralism in hermeneutics we're setting ourselves up for years and years and years of conflict and then a final crash at the end where we separate into different pieces that's what we're setting ourselves up for every church is rooted in a particular hermeneutic and ours is to in the earliest years of a group the method of interpretation usually is mostly implicit they're busy pressing their point home and so same with ours it's true of Adventism William Miller's rules for the interpretation of the Bible there are practical elaboration of the plan of Scripture interpret Scripture now Miller's interest is more particular particularly in Bible prophecy today we call our approach that the historical grammatical method if you can trace this back essentially to Luther and the Protestants Luther did noise practice it that well but he was pushing it rule along the way and that is they met the Protestant approach this approach takes the Bible seriously as an inspired true accurate revelation communicated from God to man God communicated inspired thoughts to the Bible writers who communicated them to other humans through human words now the Bible writers inspired but he chooses his own words and he thinks his own thoughts and the Spirit of God sees to it that the words are adequate we don't have to doubt the Bible we don't have to start by approaching it from the standpoint of skeptics skepticism and doubt like okay as soon as we see the power water czar the Red Sea were parted we don't immediately go be okay warning this can't be true because we look today and we don't see waters being parted today somebody and we feed 5,000 with a little tiny amount well that's a miracle but if we start by doubting the Bible then we begin by saying well what's the what's the this is just the husk or the scripture itself is the husk I need to extract from it the spiritual lesson and so the idea is to derive a principle from the the other that we can take and so that's what happens with the higher critical approach you begin with doubt and then as the the authority of the Bible diminishes the authority of the human interpreter increases and now I use my mind and now I am NOT that we would always be using our mind but now I'm going to use human judgment and human reason to pull out of the scripture and so this must not mean this it must mean that and your Bible you've got in the back of your Bibles many of you have a maps and in the back of there you'll see that there's a marshy place where the Red Sea is and if they show some Bibles will show the what the scholars think is the place where they cross the Red Sea they went through the marsh of reeds why why is that there why is it on the map because as far as that's for natural miracle that parts the ocean and they walk through which the Bible says on dry ground well that's that's oh no that involves supernaturalism so we kept to say well that probably didn't happen so instead they must have gone through and had mud sticking to their sandals and went through the muddy spot there in the marshes but at least they got through and that's and we derived that that's higher critical approach and it doesn't take the Bible seriously in any literal way it draws the principle from it Adventists try to let the Bible interpret itself when the Bible says they cross the Red Sea and dry ground I believe it what the Bible says the Jesus walked on water I believe it and we can go through the list but if we start with doubt we're going to land in a very different place so we have the historical grammatical method God is working through it to by inspired writer chooses his own his own words divine thoughts are embodied in human words in the sense that the words are chosen by the human author the thought chunks are the Word of God now in your Bible if you'll open to first Thessalonians 2 verse 13 I think you'll see something useful to us here first Thessalonians 2 verse 13 Paul is speaking and again he's talking about the Word of God so there's this combination of the human and divine hear what Paul says in verse 13 for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God for which you heard from us you accepted it not as the word of men but for what it really is the Word of God which also works in you who believe so you see even though it is given by God inspiration is given by God and it is spoken and written by men it is the Word of God it's not the word of man you didn't say it's the word of anthropos it didn't say it's the word of man it's the word of God Bayless and that's what we believe the Bible is treated as a trustworthy source of information communicated from God to humans but there are other interpretive plans now one a strand of interpretation treats the Bible as a source book for human thinking we interpreter came to a passage it seemed to conflict with what he believed he would work out a mystical or allegorical interpretation this went on for over a thousand years in the early church this is what when it came to Luther this is what he tried to disc and bring in letting scripture interpret scripture the text was functionally more of a jumping-off point what's interesting is it as you go through that time when we passed the time where the Bible is authoritative we come back to this time where human reason is elevated the Bible becomes yet again back in the like it was in those days now it becomes again a jumping-off point for my brilliant human ideas only trouble is I don't have any brilliant human ideas God's Word has brilliant divine ideas put here for humans and that's what I want to shape my life to be shaped on and as soon as I begin thinking of my brilliant ideas I need a lower case than the lowercase B so you have these different approaches I guess I already went through the the the result of higher critical teaching it's the living letting the doubt come to the top none of these things could have happened in the Bible supernatural bits are merely suspect they're they're ruled out they couldn't have happened and so you have to extract the principle or the idea from it the Bible writers culturally impacted he speaks out of his own culture and the modern-day interpreter sifts through the haystack to find the needle of truth in it to help us so his work is to extract the spiritual lesson from all the human husks of error that's the effect of higher criticism it renders the Bible a merely human document and makes the human interpreters supreme the mind of man is the measure and that's what was before Protestant interpretation and that's what we have with the new one you've probably heard it you heard a mentioned already the principle based historical cultural method because in the twenty fourteen in AD report to the world church they suggested to the toss committee they said they gave a whole new hermeneutic and that's what they called it principle based historical cultural method and what you have there is again a added way of interpreting the Bible now some of you might have seen that report and I don't have the graphic but I will describe it to you there was a graphic in the nad report that had a line horizontal line drawn across the page and it had four dots on it so on this side was literal interpretation that way of approaching the Bible you had the every word is inspired literally inspired at the opposite end over here you had historical critical or higher critical method basically the Bible it's is not even an inspired document so you have maximum inspiration even the words and at the other side you had minimum inspiration no inspiration at all and then they put a dot in there right next to this dot they called the historical grammatical method now the historical grammatical method as you heard last night from pastor Bohr that was what the World Church approved back in Brazil before with the methods of Bible study document and that is the only real method of approach we have to the Bible we accept it as literal we accept the things that are there we try for a plain reading of the Scriptures yes we take into account history and culture and all these things but ultimately the Bible is its own interpreter that's what we try to do so this is the only method we've ever had so what you have is really you really should have a chart that has three dots the total every words inspired nothing's inspired and historical grammatical if you want to frame it that way I'm not sure I would want to frame it that way but we have our approach which is not so radical that's over here and it's not so radical that's over there but it tries to speak from the actual but the scriptures themselves actually give us what the NAD did was because there wasn't a dot for the NAD they added a dot and so I guess nad is good at adding dots sometimes so you have this dot every words inspired you have this dot nothing's inspired you have this dot higher oracle grammatical method rather and they added an interesting brand-new shiny dot over here there was the principle based historical cultural method which they said that they normally use this dot historical grammatical but when they come to certain difficult texts then they're going to use the new dot and use the principle based method and so what you have with this principle based method is that now we use human reason when we come to text that or give us a problems and we are going to interpret things in a different way and we come back to and this whole report goes many times it talks about the text is culturally conditioned the Bible itself is culturally conditioned and so you have the endureth under this principle based historical cultural method the Bible becomes more of a source book you grab some bits here and you grab some bits there and you add your theories that come external to the Bible you add ideas about what the Bible writer met not just the Bible writer but the text itself is treated as being culturally conditioned the Bible is culturally impacted from the beginning the ideas in it are a mixture of human and divine thoughts they are all contaminated with culture I don't believe that God gave us a Bible which is all through and through contaminated with culture so that it's cannot be authoritative for us I believe that we have an inspired book that tells the truth that tells the truth about six six literal days of creation it tells the truth about the sin problem it tells the truth about God's solution of Jesus Jesus did by the way died on the cross Jesus was died died in when in the tomb Jesus did and is resurrected we serve a risen Savior not a savior who isn't a Savior at all that we just try to follow the ethic of Jesus well he did these nice good things and we should do them too but he's really dead and gone no we serve a risen Savior and so the principle based method is a problem because of course the same approach is used to support LGBT thinking as being Christian again you take the principle the principle based historical cultural method you draw principles supposedly draw them I should say here draw them from the scripture you're using a lot more human reason from that but you can't take the plain reading usually in the same breath that we talked about the principles and how we're going to use these good principles we are turning they're turning around and making sure that we are not going to use the plain reading the plain reading makes us all really nervous and so we have basically a choice today between sustaining the historical grammatical method which is Protestantism the Protestant churches only could only be because there was that method of Bible study we can go with that or we can venture out somewhere new with the principle-based historical culture method only I don't think it'll take us to a new place because I think we have the same virus that other churches have and I think we'll land I'm pretty sure we'll land in the same place as the other churches have if we sign it to our theologians they will come up with justification and they'll show us why we should use the new method and I'm the burden of my thought today is if you're in lead leadership it's so very important for you if you're in the General Conference Executive Committee if you're in leadership in your conference Executive Committee it's very very important for you at this time not to kick the can further down the road you must act you are duty-bound to faithfully act don't assign this to another committee of theologians remember how we saw that the United Methodist Church their bureaucracy their theologians was pretty much fully embraced this wrong approach the Jenna people in general did not and so there's this trying cleavage between those two parts in the Methodist Church I do believe that's very much the same for the seventh-day Adventist Church somebody has given this analogy it's kind of like the great deep it's like an ocean and on the ocean at the top you have the waves crashing and storms and wind and you have the theologians and then the people who are pushing real hard for the women's ordination or whatever the other issue is LGBT etc you have that happening at the top but the church the church is really the ocean goes down much deeper and many of our many of us as members in our local churches we don't believe in those things that are that are being pushed at the top but we are quietly there the gray deep we are there all through the church from from from the coast to the east coast to the west coast and around the world we believe the Seventh Avenue message that's why we're here I want to tell you when I joined this church out of the world I came out of the world and came to this church I wasn't attracted because there were some professors who were trying to implement higher critical methods here and they were doubting the Word of God I found a church that supported the Word of God in fact you know what's interesting I've narrowed down the two churches near the beginning of my search to - I noted - - I was looking actually at the United Methodist Church as becoming a Christian and becoming a member in the United Methodist Church or becoming a seventh-day adventists and I was very keen on one question what is the stance of that church on the Bible and so I began to look what does the Bible teach about the state of man in death I have the immortal soul over here and I had what the Bible teaches over here Wow I had a friend who was a Lutheran he is he I was at his wedding and his father was a pastor of a major Lutheran Church I talked to him at the wedding after in the reception I said what is your view on the mark of the beast a great a great conversation starter he says Oh in our church there are four main views on what the mark of the beast is he says we don't really talk about that because there's so many different views we don't we don't well I came to the Adventist Church I'm honored I find we have some definite ideas and it's supported by the Bible what about the Sabbath and Sunday issue oh the Methodist Church again has their standpoint then I go when I studied the Bible I look at see what the Adventist say so I became a seventh-day Adventist because the seventh-day Adventist Church up holds the plain reading of the Bible it's not just me many of you and many of you were gonna watch this on the Internet you became an Adventist not because there was some silver tongue to theologian talking to you you believe what the Bible said about Jesus you believe what the Bible taught about the Sabbath you believe that there was a worldwide church that believed these things and wants to tell them until Jesus comes so you became a seventh-day Adventist you didn't become an seventh-day Adventist and I can't think of one person who has because a principle based historical cultural method of interpretation was used so you could have this viewpoint and keep it - we're here because we love the Bible and God has given us that do you know there's even a new textbook from the seminary incorporating many of the ideas that are in the PB HC I won't go into that at this time but I do want to bring one other piece to you here before we conclude the president I want to suggest you that the president nad leadership is functioning under a different harmony hermeneutic than the adventist one it really is I'd like to give a recent example on June you might want your PIN if you want to write down them and give you this URL I'm not going to run it here but you might be interested in this although you could probably use your time even more productively but so on June 24 2017 there was a sermon given by the number two leader in the North American division he preached two sermons on that day and if you're if you get the wrong and click on the wrong one they have the same title on it but if you click on the wrong one you'll hear a sermon which is mostly an illustration about a javelin car so that's not the sermon but he did talk about the the evening sermon isn't one I'm thinking of so on this sermon he showed several slides with this presentation and if as you watch the video the link that I'll give you if you watch it you can't see the slides but I know some people who were there and actually were in the in the hall and saw the slides so on the slides were listed several different things in the church women's ordination homosexuality and so on so he shows these slides and he also mentioned them verbally at different references in the meeting mention women's ordination two or three times at least and I have the time breaks here I won't give those to you but they're in there so eventually he came to what seems to have been his main point he asked the assembly if they understood peanut butter issues do you know what a peanut butter issue is so then he shared an anecdote it had to do with whether the peanut butter should be where it should be stored in the home so he's practiced before he married according to what he said was to store peanut butter he would store it in the refrigerator and then he was married and his wife too was used to storing the peanut butter in the pantry so they found themselves a disagreement and then argument and then they refused even the camera place where according to what he said they even refused to speak to each other all over this issue of where they would store the peanut butter so then he said this and now I'll give you a direct exact quotation it had become an issue of right and wrong okay now I've got some dots here so I'm not giving you all the pieces dot and when it's an issue of right and wrong there's no give and a little bit further on he says this the seventh-day Adventist Church listened to me we are plagued by too many peanut butter issues in the church we take things and we raise them to a level that God never intended and we take our separate corners conservatives and liberals this group in that group and everybody's stuck on where the peanut butter should be and because we place it at a level of right and wrong God is a hard time getting through and the devil rejoices because while we are fighting over peanut butter issues we can't do the mission God has called us to do the way he wants us to do it unquote so women's ordination and maybe even homosexuality according to this individual are those issues in debate like are those issues like about where we would store the peanut butter his women's ordination a peanut butter issue does the world church need to consider peanut butter issue three times now maybe you doubt me or maybe you should just interpret it see it for yourself I'm gonna give you this link and you can write this down if you're interested I'm only gonna give it once so listen closely so here's the link if you wanted to watch it yourself you'll have to go in a ways to get to it because there's several other things but anyway here's the link HTTP colon slash slash those are forward slashes www.youtube.com /w 80 CH watch is the word then the question mark symbol then a lowercase V equals sign uppercase a lowercase G uppercase v uppercase C lowercase G lowercase C uppercase W uppercase D and then the numeral 0 that's the link watch it yourself if you're interested in the current current understanding on peanut butter issues my personal belief is that very very few seventh-day Adventists regard the issues of women's ordination or homosexual sexuality as matters as indifferent as where to store the peanut butter maybe this is one of the reasons we're in the issues that we are as a church because the people don't believe this is a peanut butter issue but some of the leaders apparently unless I misunderstood do someone is out of touch well let me conclude we do not need a new study of women's ordination it would not be productive for the church to call on scholars lawyers and theologians to study all while present intention well intentioned but deeply misguided leaders dig in even deeper and try to run out the clock we need action there's going to be a painful event I'm pretty sure I hope not but it's exactly when painful decisions must be made that we find out who is leading by the spirit and who is lagging behind and some who will watch this video some are called to be leaders and there's a lot of things in leadership that I I don't like I'm a pastor I have to sometimes lead and some of you are on different committees or our leaders in the church and you need to lead it's not leading when you throw it down the road it's not leading when you appoint a new study commission many times that's not leadership you do not change hermeneutics in the middle of a crisis that's not the way it works the leaders are our duty-bound to sustain the hermeneutic that already exists and all the leaders of the seventh-day Adventist Church today should be sustaining the lid the hermeneutic from Rio de Janeiro the methods of Bible study the historical grammatical method that is what you all should be sustaining and you know it and you know it the church is looking to you and praying for you you do not change hermeneutics in the middle of a crisis you do not call out the theologians to create new theologies in the middle of a crisis what must be done is that those in present leadership who are faithful must fulfill their implicit obligation they're called to support the beliefs and practices of the church there is a hermeneutic already those whom heaven is appointed to lead our implicitly responsible to support the long-standing hermeneutic of the church they must be faithful to Scripture they should use the method of interpreting the Bible out of which the very movement arose they need to make hard decisions there will be trouble and there will be tears there will likely even be persons who were so persuaded of their position that they refused to surrender their personal opinion to the collective spirit led will of God as he has revealed it to his church the leadership of denomination after denomination has faced similar crises and then they have become paralyzed well it happened to us they studied and studied and waited and waited and all the meanwhile the forces of so called progressivism were making inroads propagandizing their churches teaching different approaches of biblical interpretation to their children who they sent to their own denominational schools where they were recruited to hold the new beliefs this happened to their own children right before their eyes and they found themselves almost helpless no strong action was taken as their denomination tumbled into fragments around them time after time this has been repeated aven't ISM deserves a better fate than that though his Bible right through his Bible writers our Lord has urged us not to permit continued denial of his ways but to contend Jude the book of Jude to contend for the faith which he sent us so long ago my prayers ascend daily that the men and women who compose our present General Conference Executive Committee will be led to contend for the faith to act with decision to help the church in this hour of peril we must not halt between two opinions do you remember a case in the Bible where that happened we need to hold the hands of those leaders who are being faithful we need to pray for them I pray for our General Conference president and leadership daily are you doing that daily and finally I want to enlist every person in the hearing in my voice to do that with me to pray earnestly for the leadership of the seventh-day Adventist Church between now and the close of annual council 2017 pray that their eyes and ours will see past all the easy solutions that will surely be offered you know it's coming pray for clear seeing clear vision discernment about our present peril and boldness of heart to take whatever action is needful to effectively and decisively address non-compliance in the nad and other divisions where it continues may God bless and help us in this extraordinary hour that we have come to thank you very much I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who is tuned in to this special symposium on Scripture church structure and the path to unity we really do appreciate you tuning and we also appreciates the questions that have come in for our panel discussion I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some valuable materials that we carry here at secrets unsealed if we don't carry them I will mention it to you you have to get them some other places but I'd like to share with you some of the materials that we have available as well as materials that I have written and prepared through the course of many years of this discussion first of all I would like to mention the book the tip of an iceberg this book was written by C Raymond Holmes a good friend if there is one book that I would recommend everyone to read above all other books it would be this one even though it was written in 1994 it is so clear on the issues particularly the issue of hermeneutics or how we interpret the Bible way back there 23 years ago dr. Holmes discerned all of the deep issues that are facing the church today this book is presently out of print but secrets unsealed is negotiating to reprint this book and make it available so stay tuned about this book once again the tip of an iceberg by sea Raymond Holmes then I believe it was in 1999 that the andrews university theological seminary published the book women in ministry and of course the seminary at that time strongly supported the idea of ordaining women to the gospel ministry so in the year 2000 there was a book published in response by several scholars of the adventist church who were opposed to women's ordination the name of this book is prove all things it's edited by Mercedes Dyer who was my teacher when I was at the seminary a very fine woman but it is a book that contains a symposium of many different authors concerning this issue of women's ordination it answers many of the arguments of the pro ordination group then I want to recommend a book that is written by a non Adventist I don't recommend many books that are written by non Adventists but this is a good book we don't necessarily agree with every detail of it but the preponderance of the evidence is very very good the name of the book is evangelical feminism a new path to liberalism it's written by Wayne Grudem who is a reformed scholar now there's been a lot of criticism against the idea of using Wayne Grudem and his arguments but I believe that many of his arguments are rock-solid and in this book he answers many of the arguments that are used by the pro ordination group then I have a book that I wrote way back in 2012 leading up to the special constituency of the Pacific Union where the Pacific Union attempted to change its constitution to allow for women's or nation and when the union was not able to change the constitution they approved women's ordination anyway I wrote a little book leading up to this event called reflections on women's ordination it speaks about the the conflict that arose around the year 2012 over the issue of women's ordination that's where the hornet's nest began to cause problems in the church and then we have the same book in Spanish larva nación de la mujer sea or no so this same book is available in Spanish then we have a book that was written by Eugene Pruitt while we were at task the theology of ordination Study Committee women's ordination 31 popular arguments and biblical answers very good resource book that answers many of the points that are brought up by those who favor women's ordination then probably many of you know that secrets unsealed leading up to the general conference session actually sponsored two symposiums here in our studio the first one was in English and the title of it was women's ordination history issues and implications we had several scholars that we brought in and pastors and they presented on different aspects of this particular subject this series is available from secrets unsealed for the cost of shipping once again the title is women's ordination history issues and implications this series is available on DVD then there are several newsletter articles that I wrote leading up to the vote at the General Conference session in 2015 the first of these is reflection son Phoebe it's claimed that Phoebe was a deacon of the church and I go through a careful study of her mentioned in Romans chapter 16 and I show that she was a servant in the church as she was not a deacon a full-fledged deacon like the Deacons in the church today then many of argued that because Deborah and halda were notable women in the Old Testament that played a very important role in the history of Israel and we would not argue that point I decided to write an article titled reflections on Deborah and hold up these two notable women from the Old Testament that made a big difference in the history of Israel course their prominence in the Old Testament is used by those who favor women's ordination to say that we should ordain women to the gospel ministry then I have an article that I wrote reflections on Junie a fact or conjecture and basically what I do in this particular article is show that junior was not an apostle she was a notable person known by the Apostles but she was not an apostle then also we have a an article that was prepared by several of us who belonged to the theology of ordination Study Committee tasks group number one reviews the third option basically at first at the theology of ordination Study Committee there were only two groups those who favored and those who were against but towards the end of the meetings a third option appeared and here in this article we deal with the third option then I wrote an article for our newsletter reflections on hermeneutics because this is the really the central issue in this whole discussion is how you interpret the Bible and so I wrote an article bringing out the issues concerning hermeneutics as it relates to women's ordination then there's a sermon that I preached at GYC a couple of years ago and it's related to this it's called the risk of eternal loss it's available on YouTube that's the name of the sermon if you want to watch it and I also wrote a newsletter article titled the risk of eternal loss these are some of the newsletter articles that I wrote concerning the issue of women's ordination then we have the the book the Adventist ordination crisis which was published by amazing facts but many of those of us who belonged to task actually contributed to the arguments that are used in this book finally two resources that I would like to mention first of all and this is extremely important I would recommend people to read this because it basically covers the entire trajectory of the women's ordination discussion from 1968 through immediately after the General Conference session in 2015 the title is reflections on San Antonio this is an extremely important article because it shows the different strategies and political moves that were made to attempt to approve the the ordination of women to the gospel ministry I would highly recommend that you read this rather long article in this newsletter finally this is not in a booklet but it's an article that I wrote and the title of it is biblical and spirit of prophecy evidence for male headship it's a good number of pages actually it's 33 pages one of the big issues that is being discussed is whether the Bible teaches male headship and I believe that this document proves beyond a shadow of doubt that headship not only exists after sin but headship existed in the Garden of Eden before sin the idea of headship goes all the way back to eternity past and so these are some of the resources that are available from secrets unsealed now you probably are wondering how you can get the newsletter articles for example that I have mentioned basically all you have to do is click on resources go to secrets unsealed or G our website click on resources and then go down to where it says newsletter articles and you click there and you'll find all of the articles that are in our newsletters not only in women's ordination but also another issues I would like to just mention in closing that if you this article on headship that also is available there on our website secrets on sealed orgy we carry all of these materials with the exception of the book evangelical feminism by Wayne Grudem you would have to get that online or get it at an evangelical bookstore however all of the other resources are available from secrets unsealed so I hope that you will check out these resources these materials I believe they're clear that even though women are extremely important in the church God has given them functions that even men cannot fulfill they have not been called to be ordained as ministers of the gospel in the seventh-day Adventist Church it doesn't mean that women are inferior far be the thought from our minds that women are inferior to men they are equal to men but they have different functions that God has given them so may God bless you all and I trust that this town-hall meeting as well as the individual presentations have been a blessing to your life may God bless you and keep you in his care and may God bless his church and bring unity where there is now division blessings to you all [Music]

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Length: 79min 48sec (4788 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 25 2017