Is the Bible and Theology divorced from each other? A bad method for women ordination to the priesthood and beyond.

In the article published in the BBC, “ 'Let women be bishops' – Morgan”, the archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, claims that the next “logical step” is to let women be ordained to the office of the bishop.

This is archbishop’s Morgan arguement for his position, “On the human side, the priest/bishop represents the Christian community to God and since the community consists of women as well as men, it is right that it {the episcopate} should be open to women as well as men.
"On the divine side since the priest/bishop represents the risen Christ who redeemed both men and women, ordaining women is a testimony to that redemptive inclusiveness.”

The article also reports that the archbishop is “totally convinced" by the theological arguments for the ordination of women bishops.”

The theological argument, if we take archbishop’s Morgan serious, is not based in the Bible. Rather, it is culturally driven or ideological driven. In the first place, he says that the priest/bishop represents the Christian community to God. However, Scripture says that it’s Jesus with his sacrifice that represents the Christian community:
1 Timothy 2:5
5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

If we still follow the archbishop’s “theological” argument, then, Jesus could not have been a man, but rather, an androgynous individual, since as archbishop’s Morgan view is, that the priest/bishop represents humanity to God, and this is made up of men and women. This is rather, a truncated view of Scripture, one that is driven by the culture and the pressure of that culture, rather than by Scripture.

Now, on the divine side, as archbishop Morgan says, he is even more wrong than on the human side. Ordaining women to the priesthood or to the office of the bishop is not a sign of redemption anywhere in Scripture. Rather, what we find in I Tim. 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, is that men are the ones called, in this new redemptive era, to be the ministers of God’s people. If God and his inspired writers didn’t feel that ordaining women to the ministry was a sign of the new redemptive order, why should we in this 21st century? I Tim. 3:2 says that the bishop must be husband of one wife. Never had we read that the bishop must be wife to one husband. Why? It is Because God, in his word, the Bible, does not consider women ordained to the ministry as part of the new redemptive era.

This is what we get when those who are in places to guide the church, as archbishop Morgan is, use as their theological framework, not Scripture, but the ideas that are prominent in the culture.

Let’s stick to Scripture archbishop Morgan, and then we will all get proper and sound theology.

Luis A. Jovel

Loosing or holding on to your faith in the face of change

The New York Times has published a very interesting article regarding migrants, and Hispanic migrants in particular, called “For Some Hispanics, Coming to America Also Means Abandoning Religion”.

This article is very interesting, in that it shows what may happen, and what it does happen, when migrants move to another country in search of prosperity. While God does still play an important part in their lives, a great number of migrants, after settling down into a new country, and start to have the life that they wished for before arriving to their new land, simply start forgetting the source of their strength during their days of despair as recent arrivals.

The articles comments that a number of Hispanics are claiming that they have no religion at all, as do many other Americans. But what really interests me, as a Latin American and also as a Protestant, is that the studies cited in the article, not only talk about the “exodus” happening in the Catholic Church, but that this exodus is also occurring within the Protestant churches.

This shows us something, that regardless of the confession of faith we may declare our lips, The word of God is clear when it says: Romans 3:
10As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13"Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15"Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16ruin and misery mark their ways, 17and the way of peace they do not know." 18"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

In Romans, this refers to those who don’t want to know about God, but as Christians, we sometimes go back to our old self, and don’t want anything to do with God. We make promises in our countries of origin like “God, if you help me in the new land where I am going, I am going to pay you being a good Christian, believer…..etc.” But this does not take into consideration that our hearts may deceive us: Jeremiah 17:
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

I am a migrant, and I expect a lot of my readers are as well. I have seen how many people have come to Australia or the USA, with great hopes to move ahead financially, and how this hope drives them away from God as they get those material things they had always wanted. Financial and social security, for them, meant that they did not need God anymore. This is a very too often situation, one that I see repeated too often, just as the article of the New York Times makes it clear as well.

Not to be misunderstood, but I am all for having a house, a car, and those things that may our lives and the lives of those whom we love more comfortable. But I also know that as a Christian, my priorities are very different from those who don’t want to know about God. All material gains, are because God has given them to us as gift, not to hold on to them as to forget who gave us health and strength in order to get those material gains.

Let me finish, quoting Scripture once again:
Mathew 6:33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Blessings.

Luis A. Jovel

The beginning of a new Blog

Welcome to this first post of this blog. I run another blog in Spanish, but many friends have susggested that I should try and run a blog in English, for those who have the small impediment of not being able to speak, or in some cases, read Spanish.

So this time around, I will give people what they want, and I will start writing in English, which turns out, I think I do better.

I hope to maintain this blog at least 3 times a week, but as with all enterprises, this is a hopeful wish. But knowing that there is more material available in English than in Spanish, in which I usually find myself creating constantly, I could easily find myself writing more in English than in Spanish.

Well, as with my other blog, I hope this blog becomes a good resource for all those who are seeking to understand Scripture more, and to understand the world through a Christian world view.

Blessings.

Luis A. Jovel