A call for a new Reformation in the church: Pay the man!

Here is a topic that gets at a cherished institution. Should the church have paid, especially full-time paid, vocational ministers? There are few things more cherished in the institutional church than the pastor. Many churches take on the identity of their pastor, the people pray for their pastor, they encourage people to come to their church to hear their pastor, the pastors name is on the church sign. But is this a healthy, and more importantly Biblical model? Or is it a tradition, a holdover from Rome, a pragmatic manifestation of the change of the church from a fellowship of the saints to a hierarchical, corporate organization. Or something in-between?

I see this as a can and should question. Just because something is permitted doesn't mean that we should or must automatically do it. I can with a clear conscience have a glass of wine with dinner (I don't like wine, but just go with it). Provided I am not getting drunk, I think I am OK within the Biblical mandate. But I don't drink any alcohol out of conviction of the evils of drunkenness and to avoid being a stumbling block to my brother. I can but I don't.

There are two questions here to deal with. First can we Biblically pay a pastor/minister/elder etc. to serve in ministry. The second is the one that gets a little stickier, and what I assume will cause some controversy but also hopefully generate some reasonable, humble discussion: should we have paid ministers?

Before I start, again my intent here is not to slander those who labor in ministry or to start a controversy just for fun. I know a number of men who are full-time, paid pastors and they do a wonderful work, they are godly men and great servants of Christ (Joe and Josh come to mind). I don't think they are lazy men who don't want to work in the private sector. I don't think that they are without any useful skills and cannot get gainful employment (I have a degree in Poli Sci and I have always done very well in the business world). People who accuse pastors of laziness have never been a pastor! I am sure there are men who fit the description of lazy or worthless for work in the ministry just as there are men like that in every field, I just haven't met them. I have struggled over posting these thoughts because I don't want to offend but I think we have to seriously ask these questions.

The focus here is on what is proper for the church. Is it healthy for the church, is it healthy spiritually for the man (or men) called to be pastors, is it healthy for the rest of the men in the church to subcontract out the spiritual leadership of the church to one or a couple of men who are paid full-time to work in ministry.

Can we pay the pastor?

The clearest, in my mind, verses supporting the paying of elders comes in 1 Corinthians 9...

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain." Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:1-23)

I think that Paul establishes that financial support is permitted, indeed can be considered a right. But notice also what he says along with this. Twice in these passages Paul says that while he could get paid, he doesn't that he "may present the gospel free of charge" and "I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision.". So we have two seemingly conflicting statements here. On the one hand, Paul says it is his right as it is the right of others to make their living by preaching the Gospel, but on the other hand he says that he did not make use of this right for the sake of winning men to the Gospel. That is an important distinction.

(Note that not everyone agrees that it is Scriptural to pay men for what could be done free of charge, i.e. preaching the Gospel. See Alan Knox's series on this very issue, it is very insightful even if it probably will offend many with his position drawn from the Word that elders should support themselves by working and not in vocational ministry. The first of his posts is here, as well as a specific post with great discussion on 1 Corinthians 9 in particular. Agree with him or not one should at least give it a read and compare what he says with the Scriptures and compare what the Scriptures say to our modern church institutions. I will say that I am more and more convinced by Mr. Knox and his arguments to the contrary so I am strongly considering changing my view)

Once we have established can, now we look at should. Is it required to have a paid ministry? Clearly not as Paul pointed out he took nothing from the Corinthians. In other places we read of Paul working as a tentmaker, his trade. His rationale is similar to the rationale we might have today. By rejecting pay, he owed no man, he worked for his bread, he could not be accused of using his call and his gifts for gain. He fed himself by the work of his own hands and was therefore free to preach the Gospel. There was no hint of a conflict of interest in his preaching.

What is the role of the single elder in the church?

If there is a single elder, or even one senior elder who carries a disproportionate amount of authority, certainly a disproportionate amount of the responsibility will fall on him. But if you have a true elder ruled church, with a plurality of elders who share responsibilities of teaching, serving, preaching, etc. then there is no reason that a group of elders couldn’t serve the church every bit as well and do so without compensation. But I know that in churches with one elder, i.e. the "senior pastor", the disproportionate amount of the expected ministry work falls on them. After all, he is gettin' paid for this stuff!

(For more on the plurality of elders, see 9 Marks Ministry which has a number of articles about elders or check out Monergism)

The arguments in favor of a paid ministry

But what of the argument that the average church doesn’t have a sufficient number of men who are Biblically qualified to be elders?

That to me is a cop out. We don’t have sufficient numbers of elder qualified men because we have not trained up men to get to that point, we don’t demand more of the Christian man and because we have set up a system of subcontracting out the Gospel ministry. Far easier to throw some money in the plate to support the pastor than to man up and do the work of an elder yourself. It is a vicious circle. We figure since we pay the pastor, he should do all the visiting, teaching, preaching, leading. The more he does, the more people lay on him and the more separation we see between the pastor and the flock. The elders in the church should spend a great deal of time raising up other men in the church to serve as elders if they are not prepared to serve already. The men in the church will never be prepared to serve as elders if preparing them is not a primary mission of the church. Just because there are a lack of men who are ready today is not an excuse to chuck the whole thing and pay one guy to do it.

What about all the time that is required to minister to a congregation? Sermons to prepare, people to visit, meetings to attend?

Again, in a true plural elder church where the men of the church who are Biblically qualified serve as elders, there is no reason that those men cannot share the burden of pastoral care, teaching and preaching. If you have four elders in a church, each man would preach twice a month assuming two Sunday services. You most certainly can work in a regular job and properly prepare two sermons a month. You can certainly serve in a pastoral capacity when the needs of the church are divided among the elders instead of falling on one man. Will it take sacrifice and a supportive wife. Absolutely. Is that a problem? It certainly shouldn't be.

The potential dangers of a paid ministry

As we go further down this road, I see the role of the pastor becoming more professionalized, more specialized, more separate from the laity. The issue of professional education in ministry is one that seems to me to be an extraordinarily modern invention, even though it has been around for centuries. When we look at the New Testament, the calling of apostles, disciples, evangelists we don’t see Christ seeking out the academics and calling people based on their resume, where they got their diploma. Quite the opposite: Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13 ESV) There is nothing wrong with a seminary degree, in fact it is a wonderful quality and can be a great blessing to the church, but it is not a qualification of or a disqualification for the Gospel ministry.

There are many other potential dangers, some I have seen and some I have personally experienced in my "brief" time as a pastor. I would like to bring them up but I know full well that some will read those concerns, decide they refer to themselves and take umbrage. If my point here were to cause a needless controversy or stir up contention, it would be easy to throw a bunch of hypothetical or anecdotal dangers out, some real and some imagined but that isn't going to prove productive.

The subcontracting culture

Why do yourself what you can pay someone else to do? Because it is easier. We are a subcontracting society. We pay people to fix everything under the sun because we never took the time to learn how to fix things ourselves: cars, plumbing, computers. We pay people to teach our children in schools. We farm out the training of our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord to the Sunday school. We pay people we have met once or twice to be missionaries in far away lands because that is easier than witnessing to your neighbor. We pay a man to be the minister in the local church because that means we don't have to. We expect him to do the studying, the thinking, the struggling with the text and then get up on Sunday morning and tell us what the text says. We sit back and listen, because after all he is the professional. It is stunning how ignorant men and women who have spent their entire lives in the church listening to preaching are of the Word. It is stunning how ignorant I am of the Scriptures! Basic theological concepts are completely absent because many in the institutional church never wrestle with the Word themselves. We are fat and lazy spiritually because instead of working for ourselves, we get spoon fed the Word.

The mormon example

Granted, mormonism is a cult and controls it's membership in subtle ways. It is not a church we should seek to emulate. But something interesting about mormonism is applicable here. Mormonism is a highly demanding religion, very demanding on the personal time of it's membership (especially men). Unlike many Christian churches where women do most of the non-pastoral work, much of the burden in the mormon church falls on the men. There is no paid clergy at the mormon church except at the highest level in leadership (i.e. those responsible for whole regions of mormon churches). Yet mormon men serve many hours on their own, and receive no compensation for it. In fact, it is not only asked but expected that the men in the church will serve in the local body, cheerfully and without compensation, leading and ministering and teaching. Why is it that a false religion can engender such a response from their men and yet the church, which is supposed to be filled with born-again regenerate men, cannot get people to minister unless it pays them to do so?

The answer?

I am not sure what the answer is. We have a deeply entrenched system in the ministry. Man feels called. Man goes to get a seminary education. Man applies for a pastor position at churches. Church has search committee interview the man. Church pays man to preach and provide pastoral care. This goes on until man dies/retires/quits, finds a bigger/better church or church fires man. What is the end result of this? Men that are burned out in ministry from shouldering all of the burden of leading the church. Churches full of lazy Christians or churches that are full of the unregenerate. The local church devolves and loses it's rightful place as the community center for worship by Christians and becomes an entertainment choice.

Should Christians do for pay what could be, should be done for free? Is a gift for preaching and teaching a mandate to get paid? There are a lot of people with wonderful talents for service in the church who ask nothing and receive nothing. Is preaching the Gospel something that only men with a seminary degree can do? I don't think so. On the other hand if someone works at a lower paying job to have more time to minister, is it wrong for the church to support that person from time to time financially?

I welcome discussion and expect disagreement. I would expect that any disagreement be based in the Scriptures, not in pragmatism or church tradition. As I started with, this topic gets at the heart of one of the most cherished institutions in the church and in Americana. I don't pretend to have the answer here, but I do have the question and it is one that for all our traditions must be asked.

Give Thanks

His Steadfast Love Endures Forever

A Psalm for giving thanks.

100:1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.


Psalm 100 ESV

Why do the institutions in Christianity always collapse?

That is the question asked on the Albert Mohler show last Friday. In the show, Why Christian Institutions Are So Easily Lost, Dr. Mohler laments the loss of so many Christian institutions while in New England, home of so many fine universities that were founded for the propagation of the Gospel and now are Godless, secularized shells of themselves. Dr. Mohler knows this issue from the front lines, being one of the leaders in the "Conservative Resurgence" in the Southern Baptist Convention and a driving force behind removing the heretics from their teaching positions at Southern Seminary. In his accompanying blog post, Echoes of Old Heresies Still Among Us -- A Visit to Divinity Hall, Dr. Mohler makes the following observation...

Standing in the chapel in Divinity Hall last evening, I was struck by how contemporary Emerson's argument sounds. The call he issued 170 years ago is the very message we now hear from others -- Christianity must change or die. We cannot simply preach a book that is two thousand years old. God still speaks, and a slavish dependence on the Bible is both offensive and ineffectual. Doctrines must go -- intuition and sentiment will be enough.

The issues and arguments are the same. Nevertheless, we have all the evidence we need to show us where Emerson's argument leads. It leads to the death of churches, denominations, institutions, and ministries. It leaves sinners dead in their sins and robs them of hearing the Gospel.

The church has never needed "newborn bards of the Holy Ghost." Instead, the need of the church is for preachers who are skilled in the art of preaching the Word of God -- rightly dividing the Word of Truth, while holding without apology to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

I am glad I visited that historic room in Divinity Hall last night. It served to remind me of what is at stake in our generation -- and for eternity. There are no new heresies, only echoes of the old ones. And yet, the old ones come back again and again.

As I listened to the broadcast on my way to work and back (my new job is measured by podcasts, it is an episode of the White Horse Inn and half of an Albert Mohler show each way!) I was struck by what Dr. Mohler didn't suggest. The thought I had was whether Dr. Mohler was missing the most obvious reason that Christian institutions are lost: Institutions by nature are antithetical to Christianity. Look at the history of the church, and ask what institutions have survived. The church became mainstreamed under Constantine and that eventually led to Roman Catholicism and a thousand years of darkness. The reformation came and the church was on the road to reform, but what came out of that movement was the magisterial reformation in Europe. What are the fruits of those institutions in Western Europe, once the cradle of Christendom? Empty churches. Massive secularization. What about America? Look at the universities and seminaries. The ones that are the oldest have almost all gone secular. Look at Baylor, Dartmouth, Wake Forest, Harvard, Princeton, Yale. All established as Christian institutions, all lost now to the church forever. The great denominations? Other than the Southern Baptist Convention (which has it's own issues) they are all creeping or charging toward heresy. The United Methodist church. The Episcopal church. The Evangelical Lutheran church. The Christian Reformed Church. The Presbyterian Church-USA. Churches throughout New England sit empty in town after town. There are virtually no institutions that have been established as Christian institutions that have survived more than a century unscathed.

Christianity is not an institution. When people try to emulate the secular world by creating institutions, those institution eventually emulate the secular world by becoming secularized. We seek to create new and improved institutions to replace the corrupt institutions without asking if the problem is in institutionalizing the faith in the first place. Yet we lament the loss of one institution after another. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But that is exactly what we have been doing for centuries.

Am I wrong?

The priesthood of all versus reality

The Assembling of the Church: Priesthood of the Few or Priesthood of All?

Very interesting post on a blog I have come across that really has gotten my attention. Alan Knox is adjunct professor of Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, so he isn't some crazed rube from the backwoods who doesn't know anything. Some of the questions he raises really tips some of the most sacred cows in the church, some sacred cows that need to be tipped and turned into hamburger.

Can we truly believe in a priesthood of all believers when we say that some men are more priestly than others? We all have equal access to God, just some men have more access? Is leadership in the church a position or a function? Mr. Knox suggest that what we have today is not much different than what we had before 1517...

I do not think it is possible to maintain the priesthood of all while requiring a priesthood of the few at the same time. Since the Reformation, it has been clear that the doctrine of the priesthood of the few has worked to maintain the clergy/laity divide with which the magisterial reformers disagreed. According to Scripture, all believers are priests.

Sound words. I encourage you to check out his blog. But be warned, the corpses of sacred cows litter the landscape. Don't trip!

Good enough for the Obama girls

But not an option for many parents

The news came out yesterday, and no surprise here, the Obama girls will be going to a private school in Washington D.C.

Obamas chose private school for daughters

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama and his wife have chosen Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters, opting for a private institution that another White House child, Chelsea Clinton, attended a decade ago.

“A number of great schools were considered. In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now,” said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama.

That makes all the sense in the world, given the media and security issues that surround the children of Presidents. It would have made no sense at all, even if D.C. schools were decent schools, to send the kids of the President to a public school. I don't criticize or begrudge the Obama's the opportunity to send their kids to a private school, as they did in Chicago before he was elected President.

Where my grumbling comes in is the double standard. The Obama's can afford to send their children to a nice private school instead of the problem riddled D.C. public schools. But most parents in the District cannot, and like the parents of children in most large cities they are faced with a no-win choice of sending their kids to failing schools full of violence or moving to the suburbs where the cost of living goes up. To send your kids to private schools in America means paying double: paying taxes to support public schools whether or not you have kids or if your kids attend that public school plus paying tuition at the private school. If you homeschool your kids, you still pay those taxes and get no real benefit to your own children. Americans are forced to subsidize failure. It is like being made to pay for repairs to a junker car that you don't own and don't drive but you still need to pay to keep it sputtering along on the road for someone else. The public school will never get better when the vast majority of parents have little choice but to send their kids to them (or homeschool them, which is something that many parents have been falsely convinced is beyond them). Like any organization, there is no compelling reason for public schools to improve. Only when we have real choice will the education system in America get better. Money isn't the answer. If you waste a billion dollars, wasting two billion isn't going to make things better, just more expensive. Competition will force schools to improve or to shut down in favor of other options.

It is great that the Obama's had the choice and made the right one for their kids. What would be even better is if he took steps to afford the same choices to regular Americans to determine where their education dollars go: public, private or home school. Unfortunately, with Obama beholden to the unions including the NEA, that sort of politically courageous and costly decision seems pretty unlikely.

Yum-E!

This is a little out of the norm, but I made these cranberry scones for my kids (and I ate one or two myself!) and they are great. I am not much for baking but this wasn't too bad and only took about half an hour to prepare.

A call for a new Reformation in the church: What if?

What if?

What if the church structure we have built is not bringing us into closer communion with the body, but is instead making us look less and less like the Bride of Christ. What if the church (going to church, being members of churches) is keeping us from being the church? The church is cherished, and rightly so. But the church has major issues. Not just dying mainline churches. Not just latte serving churches or liberal emerging churches. It is a problem in stoutly Reformed, conservative churches.

What is the church?

Somewhere we go?

Something we do?

Some place we belong to as "members"?

We have developed a very structured, very carefully defined idea of what constitutes "the church". But does what happens on Sunday morning equate to the church we see in the New Testament? We gather at the appointed time. We sing a couple of songs picked out for us, and often listen to someone else singing while we sit there. We sit back and listen to a man we have hired to preach a message to us. Sing and pray, go home. Repeat weekly. Don't stop going, because then you are "forsaking the assembling of the saints". Is that what was intended for us?

I think of our close friends from "up north". We would have the occasional meal together. We would hang out with one another. Our kids would play together. We would help each other out when there was a need. What separated us is where we went to church, we went to church A and they went to church B. But when we get together and break bread together, when we help around the house when one or the other is gone, when we lift each other up in prayer and in helping with the kids when we need it, that is the church. It is not a complete expression of the church, there was not a preaching of the Word, or discipleship or a breaking of bread in communion. But we were His sheep, gathered together in fellowship, lifting one another, encouraging one another. We have by and large lost that sense of true fellowship, true community, true communion of the saints and replaced it with an organization.

How do we seperate the culture and the tradition that clutter things up from the simple expression of the church, the church without committees, without budgets, without ivory tower academics? That is the question, and it is on the minds of many Christians these days, Christians frustrated with the state of the church. We need to follow two steps: First, have the courage to set aside our comfortable assumptions and second, to open up the Word and look at what it says. That is what this series is all about. It is not a vendetta. It is not an attempt to be rebellious. It is not a rejection of authority. It is just a sincere desire to have a conversation, and if Christians cannot talk about the church without getting nasty and personal, what can we talk about?

Yet another reason to dislike Obama

Would-be appointees quizzed on guns

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is asking potential appointees detailed questions about gun ownership, and firearms advocates aren’t happy about it.

The National Rifle Association has denounced the move, which has already led one Republican senator to consider legislation aimed at ensuring a president can’t use an applicant’s gun ownership status to deny employment.

It’s just one question on a lengthy personnel form — No. 59 on a 63-question list — but the furor over the query is a vivid reminder of the intensity of support for Second Amendment rights and signals the scrutiny Obama is likely to receive from the ever-vigilant gun lobby.

Obama’s transition team declined to go into detail on why they included the question, suggesting only that it was done to ensure potential appointees were in line with gun laws.

Anyone think that Obama, with a far left agenda and a power hungry liberal majority is not going to go after gun owner rights? Think again. Might be time for me to buy another firearm or three...

Great description of Barack Obama!

From Emmet Tyrrell at Townhall.com

President-elect Barack Obama is a man of many firsts, some of them auspicious. One of his firsts, however, is not so auspicious. Obama is America's first motivational speaker to be elected to the presidency.

That is one of the best comments I have read, it really gets to the heart of the whole Barack Obama experience. All flash, all dazzle. All sizzle and no steak. All hat and no cattle. The problem is that now we are stuck with him for four years. Four years of the liberal establishment pulling his strings and running this country down the path of socialism.

Hope? Change? (Liberal) Politics as usual...

Here is yet another sign that Barack Obama is not interested in a new kind of politics. He is no different than every other liberal Democrat that has come down the road, except that he is smooth talking, serious, level headed and looks and sounds great on TV. Now he is surrounding himself with the old guard of the party...

WASHINGTON – Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday.

The appointment has not been announced, but these officials said the job is Daschle's barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews the background of the South Dakota Democrat. One area of review will include the lobbying connections of his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who has done representation mostly on behalf of airline-related companies over the years. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorize to discuss the matter publicly.

Tom Dascle as secretary of HHS. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. What should be apparent to anyone is exactly what I have been saying all along, that Barack Obama is an empty suit that was handpicked and used by the American Left. Now that he is the "President-Elect", the old school liberals are coming out of the woodwork to take the reins of power and push through the agenda that they failed to enact for decades.

I wonder if Obama realizes that he is being played or if he even cares as long as he gets to "make history"?

(By the way, I love the seal with "The Office of the President-Elect" on it. Is it just me or is there no such thing as the office of the President-Elect? He doesn't even hold the office yet but is already having tons of press conferences and they are running approval polls. The people in this country are in for a rude shock when the day after the inauguration, the economy still is in the can and the world is still full of dangerous people and he has no plan to fix it)

More on headcovering

Read an interesting link from Monergism on headcovering by Dr. Robert Spinney. He makes an interesting point on our presuppositions regarding headcovering for women. There are basically two presuppositions we come to 1 Corinthians 11 with. One is that we presuppose (presupposition A) that Paul was writing only to the Corinthian church and the default position should be that headcovering is not normative for today unless proven otherwise.. The other presupposition (presupposition B) is that we should assume that headcovering is normative for today unless proven to not be. From Dr. Spinney's post...

Presupposition B is more sound. This is the assumption we normally use when we interpret the Bible. For example, pastors do not begin sermons on “children obey your parents in the Lord” by proving that such instruction is applicable to Christians today. We all assume (correctly) that such teaching passages are applicable unless we have strong biblical reasons for believing otherwise.

Regarding 1 Corinthians 11:1-16, this means that we must see solid evidence that we are not supposed to do this today before we reject the instruction. The burden of proof rests upon the man who says we do not have to obey this biblical command.

Unfortunately, we don’t treat the issue of head coverings in this manner. We place the burden of proof upon those people who maintain that we should obey the Bible’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. We would never do this with other instructions in the Word of God. Why the double standard? Perhaps because obeying this particular instruction might mark one as peculiar. Our strong desire to fit in with our prevailing culture may well influence how we interpret the Bible. Surely this is a danger that we must guard against. (emphasis added)

The entire article is thought provoking and worthwhile reading. Advocating headcovering is not a knee jerk reaction, a simplistic and overly literal reading of the Bible. Many Christians have studied the issue and come to the conclusion that women should cover their heads. It is at the very least an issue that should be prayerful considered and not dismissed because this person or that person has passed judgment over the issue and that means the matter is closed. If you assume that any command in the Bible must be defended first, you throw every doctrine in the Bible in doubt and insist that the burden of defense falls on the Word to fit into our culture first unless we can prove otherwise.

In fairness, there are several articles linked from Monergism's subsection on headcovering that do not support headcovering. I would invite you to read those articles and consider what they have to say but that you test all things against what the Word says.

Looking for a gift to buy me?

Come on, I know you are. But this is not it...

Be afraid of the contents of your spam folder. Be very afraid.