Theology in the Raw - S2: Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, Rick Warren, Female Leaders in the Early Church, and much more: Q & A with Preston Sprinkle

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. This is a Q&A podcast where I'm going to address many questions such as what's the best definition for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? What was the most compelling part of my interview with Rick Warren? What are my thoughts about MLK Jr.'s history with adulteries and why this isn't talked about more? Were there examples of female leadership in churches in the second and third century? Were there examples of female leadership in churches in the second and third century? Church services often feel like a weekly performance and event. And how do we get away from this?

Starting point is 00:00:33 It's clear that sex within marriage should stay within marriage. But what does the Bible say about sex before marriage? And on and on it goes. My Patreon supporters have sent in over 60 questions. I will get to almost all of them. I won't get to every single one, but I will get to the ones that they voted on most. If you would like to ask me a question, you have to be a Patreon supporter. So if you want to do that, you can go to patreon.com forward slash TheOliginRaw. Become a supporter for as little as five bucks a month. Get access to premium content like the ability to grill me on these Q&A podcasts. So without further ado, let's jump in.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Okay, so Tom asks, what's the best definition that I have for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? So the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit occurs in a few accounts. Let's see, Matthew 12, Mark 3. That's Matthew 12, 22 to 32-ish. Mark 3, 22 to 30, and then in Luke 12, 10. I've always understood this as accrediting something like this. I mean, just off the top of my head, something like accrediting the work of the Spirit at work in Jesus to the work of Satan. I mean, that's kind of exactly what is going on in the text. Now, I think a lot of people that ask this question, there's kind of an underlying fear, like they think they, you know, might have committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit or, you know, maybe they did it on accident, even they did something and they blasphemed the Holy Spirit, you know, curse you or whatever, they bumped their toe and all of a sudden they're like, ah, shoot, I can never go back, I can never be forgiven for that.

Starting point is 00:02:17 So I think it's quite a bit more profound than that. I don't think you can kind of commit it on accident. In fact, I don't even think can kind of commit it on accident. In fact, I don't even think it's kind of like a one-time thing, like a really, really, really bad sin that you commit, you know, and then you can kind of never go back on it. I think it's much more profound than that. We do have other scriptures like in Mark 3, 28, where Jesus says, truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of mankind and whatever blasphemies they utter. You have a whole huge, profound theme of grace and forgiveness and lots of really, really bad people who did really, really, really, really bad things being forgiven by God throughout scripture. So we do need to situate whatever this blasphemy of the Holy

Starting point is 00:03:00 Spirit is within the larger paradigm of grace. I did a little research to see what other people were saying about this, and I actually found a really good article free online by Sam Storms. Sam Storms is a really... How would I characterize Sam? I don't think I've ever met him, but he seems to me like a really honest, thoughtful scholar. And he wrote an article online called 10 Things You Should Know About Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And it was really good. I thought, I mean, when I read it, I'm like, this captures what I think is going on in the text. So he has a great paragraph here about halfway through the article where he says, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is willful, wide-eyed slandering of the work of the Spirit,

Starting point is 00:03:45 attributing to the devil what was undeniably divine. This then was not a one-time momentary slip or inadvertent mistake in judgment. This was a persistent lifelong rebellion in the face of inescapable and undeniable truth. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not a careless act committed only once in a moment of rage or rebellion, but a calloused attitude over time, a persistent defiance that hardens and calcifies the heart. I think I would agree with that. I think everything you're saying there, especially the emphasis on the longevity of a calloused heart, I think is really important. As I've said, I think I heard somebody else say it, you know, years and years ago, if you're concerned about having committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, you probably

Starting point is 00:04:36 haven't done it then because people who blaspheme the Holy Spirit aren't concerned that they might have disobeyed God, you know, to the extent of never being forgiven. So next question, what was the most compelling part of my interview with Rick Warren? If you're not aware, I had recently had Rick Warren on the podcast. And yeah, it was something that I've been trying to book for a while. And I know he's probably one of the busiest people I've ever heard of. And so I was just, you know, really touched that he was able to do that interview. The most compelling part, the fact that he knew I existed. I mean, I was blown away when he was like, you know, at the beginning saying he's, you know, I don't know. I forget what he said, but it's like, oh, they really loves that. I

Starting point is 00:05:23 ask good questions and all these things. I'm like, I didn't know you knew who I – yeah, I had no clue. So he spent about half of the podcast explaining why he has shifted his view on women pastors, and then he spent the latter half talking about him, his interaction with the SBC, and how and why and the whole process of Saddleback, his church, getting kicked out of the SBC. Honestly, I was more interested in the latter. I did not bring him on to have him kind of like defend his view on women pastors. That wasn't part of the plan. He just kind of went there. And I was totally fine for him to go there, but I mean, I was more interested in just kind of the ecclesiological, um, you know, uh, questions that surround, you know, um, uh, the SBC denomination and,

Starting point is 00:06:15 and Saddleback getting kicked out for this reason and everything. So that, that was my main reason for having him on. So, but it was great. It was great to hear him, um, unpack his position and why he now is... I don't know if he used the term egalitarian, but at least why he would support women pastors. I mean, to be honest, you guys know I'm knee deep in a lot of these arguments and the literature and everything. So there wasn't like anything... There wasn't like an argument he used or, you know, referred to or summarized that I was like, oh, wow, you know, I haven't thought about that. Each one I have thought about, I've wrestled with. I've also, I guess one of the sides he didn't give is kind of the complementarian responses to all those arguments.

Starting point is 00:06:58 Like everything he was saying is pretty, you know, well documented in the literature and at least complementarian scholars have responded to, I would say, all of the things he brought up. I'm not saying the complementarian scholars are right. I'm not saying Rick Warren's right. I'm just saying that it's not like these were like kind of, none of these arguments kind of took me by surprise. If there was one that I thought was most compelling, you know, I do think that at the beginning of his talk, that the Joel 2 reference to men and women will prophesy, and not just that you have that one verse in Acts, was it 218, quoting Joel 2, but that does speak to kind of a large kind of paradigm shift, something really significant, significant shift happening between the Old and New Covenant. That's what Joel 2 is looking

Starting point is 00:07:54 forward to. And he situates, he kind of broadens out the gift, or at least says that the gift of prophecy or people who will prophesy are not just, you know, older men, but like lots of other people will be prophesying. Now, of course, there is a massive debate about what is prophecy? Is it akin to authoritative preaching? Or is it just kind of ad hoc, like revelations that God might give to random people, but not some kind of, you know, office in the church? Does it matter that it might be or might not be an office in the church? Does it matter that it might be or might not be an office in the church? So there's lots of questions surrounding prophecy. This is one area of the debate that I have looked probably most extensively into, or at least among all the

Starting point is 00:08:38 specific passages and issues, this is one that I feel like I have a decent handle on. And I would agree that New Testament prophecy is very similar to what we would call preaching. I wouldn't say it is preaching because you have other words that say preaching and they're not just synonyms with prophecy, but both the meaning of prophecy and how we see prophets prophesy in the New Testament and the overlap with other kind of word groups, especially the phrase like the word of exhortation. You see a lot of overlap between word of exhortation and prophecy, and also the function of prophets in the ecclesiological structure of the church. Anyway, I'm summarizing a much bigger issue that I don't want to get too lost in the weeds. But all that to say, I do agree with Rick that the presence of female prophets and females prophesying in the New Testament,

Starting point is 00:09:39 to me, does suggest biblical grounds that they can preach to a mixed congregation. Now, I'm not as convinced as Rick was that in Acts chapter 2, you have women preaching to what we would consider something akin to almost like a gathering of believers. Peter's the one that stood up and gave what we would call the sermon. So in that specific passage, I'm not as convinced that that's the best place to go as an example, a narrative example of women sort of preaching to a gathering of believers. But it does say that they will do that in the prophecy, if that makes sense. I think, yeah. So I just don't want to squeeze more out of a passage than is clearly there.

Starting point is 00:10:34 So yeah, I'm a little more cautious about that. But again, at the end of the day, I think Rick and I would both, I would agree with Rick that women prophesying in the new Testament, specifically first Corinthians, uh, 11, five gives a clear reference. You have prophets, female prophets in, in, uh, Luke two in, in Acts, what is it? 21, I think it's 21, 20 or 21 Phillips daughters. And you have, you know, female prophets like hold it in the old Testament too. So yeah, I do think that that's, that's, uh, I do think that's significant. Some of his other, um, arguments I was maybe less convinced of, yeah, I do think that that's significant. Some of his other arguments I was maybe less convinced of. Others, you know, a bit more, but that's not part of this question, so I don't need to get into that. So, yeah, let's move on.

Starting point is 00:11:16 Oh, this is actually a separate question. It says, are we as certain as Rick Warren claimed that women Christians did teach or preach at Pentecost. So yeah, I already answered that. I didn't, yeah, I forgot that these were two different questions. Yeah, you've already heard my answer. No, I'm not as certain as Rick is. However, again, at the end of the day, I think whether they preached at Pentecost or not, I do think they were preaching, namely prophesying, which included what we would consider some kind of preaching. I do think that it was happening in the first century church by women. All right, next question. All right, Phil asks, what are my thoughts about MLK Jr.'s history with adulteries and why it

Starting point is 00:11:58 isn't talked about more given today's Me Too movement, especially in the church. Let me say a couple things here. First of all, the fact that MLK did have multiple affairs that's been well documented. I have heard some people when this is brought up saying, are we sure? Isn't it just kind of a right-wing conspiracy thing? It's not. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, if you go back and read David Garrow's Pulitzer Prize winning book biography on MLK called Burying the Cross, it's a really big book. It's like five, six hundred pages, extremely detailed and extremely well documented. documented. It's one of the best, I think. I mean, I don't, again, this isn't just my opinion. I think it's been hailed as one of the best, most thorough biographies of MLK and the civil rights movement. He has, I mean, extensive documentation of MLK's adulteries. And like, it's not something he even like denied. Like it was, it just, it is what it what it is so yeah so i thought it was so well

Starting point is 00:13:05 established i didn't know people weren't talking about it um i guess there's a difference between saying that it didn't happen um and then talking about mlk and glowing terms you know uh versus simply addressing me too issues and maybe even praising MLK's civil rights movement without mentioning. There's a difference between just simply not mentioning it, but if somebody said, hey, did you know he had multiple affairs? He said, yeah, yeah, I know that, but that's not kind of what I'm concerned about right now. There's a difference between that, I think, and people just flat out saying, oh, this didn't happen. So yeah, I don't know. I don't, the answer is I don't, I don't know why certain people might not mention MLK in, um, in, as they talk about, uh, the Me Too movement. I've heard people bring him up. I've heard other people not bring him up. And again,

Starting point is 00:13:56 I'm not sure why, um, they wouldn't bring him up or why they feel the need to bring him up. I think for some people, maybe they might want a cleaner moral leader. I think we do kind of tend towards binary, you know, like good and bad people, you know, like if this person did good things and he's a good person and everything about him must be good. And if, if he's bad, then everything about him must be bad. I think that's just part of our polarized, uh, culture, um, rather than was it, uh, Solson, Solson, I never know how to pronounce that dude's name, but yeah, who said, you know, the, the line between good and evil runs down the middle of the heart of every person or how, you know, however he worded it. I think that's a more accurate representation of, the middle of the heart of every person or however he worded it. I think that's a more accurate representation of humanity. And even really good people sometimes do really bad things.

Starting point is 00:14:50 It doesn't take away the good things they did, nor the good causes they fought for. It just means that humans are a complex people. And oftentimes, moral heroes are very complex people. I mean, honestly, if you want a cleaner civil rights leader, if you need somebody that's morally kind of squeaky clean, then go read Malcolm X. I mean, that dude is, well, there's a quote in the movie. I think it's actually a documented FBI quote where the, you know, FBI agents were trying to find dirt on Martin Luther King. And, you know, they had plenty of dirt to find. But when they tried to find dirt on Malcolm X, they just couldn't find anything. The dude was like so clean morally. I mean, you know, he was a Muslim. MLK was a Christian. So you have that, yeah, I guess you have that factor to consider. But in terms of just like just moral behavior, Malcolm X was extremely

Starting point is 00:15:39 a disciplined person. And there's a quote in that, in the movie, Malcolm X, you know, the FBI agents are, you know, kind of frustrated. They can't find anything. And they're like, man, compared to MLK, this guy's a saint. And I think there's, I think that's pretty accurate. So again, this doesn't take away all of the amazing things that MLK did, nor the causes he fought for. It just means humans are complex figures. Heroes are complex. You know who else is a complex hero? Everyone in the Bible, pretty much. I mean, Abraham and Jacob and even Joseph and David, of course, and, you know, I mean, Solomon's a mess. I mean, there's on and on ago is like, you know, these people that we sing about and some, you know, Sunday school.

Starting point is 00:16:30 Yeah, they had many skeletons in their closet as well. All right, next question. Were there examples of female leadership in churches in the second and third century? So this is not an area that I have studied. I've only read stuff in passing. Okay. So I'm going to reference a few characters here, but I would encourage you to chase down all of these references and do some fact checking. These are ones that I just have heard about, have read a tiny bit on, but I haven't done that part of the study yet. I will get to it. I do want to at least get to the first couple of hundred years of the early church as I'm looking at the question of women in church

Starting point is 00:17:15 leadership and try to see like what was the situation in the early church, maybe like pre Constantine church just to have some kind of cutoff date. So I remember hearing about Ignatius, that early, early writer. When's Ignatius? Late first, early second century, I think early second century. He references a couple women, one in particular, Tavia, who I think might have been the way he references her. I don't have the reference in front of me, but she might have been some kind of house church leader. And again, I'm going to assume that there's going to be debates about this, but some people reference her. There's another woman, is it Alcee, who he sends greetings to. Now, just because he sends greetings to a woman doesn't

Starting point is 00:18:06 necessarily mean she's a leader. But if he's kind of sending greetings to all these male church leaders and then a couple of his greetings are to women, that does at least raise the question. In the early second century, the Roman governor Pliny the Younger, he wrote a letter to, let's see, I think it's to another Roman leader about how to deal with these Christians. And he references two women that are called, that he calls in Latin, ministrae, which is translated, well, it's kind of like servant or deacon. which is translated, well, it's a kind of like servant or deacon. Oh yeah, I do have this quote. So he says, Pliny says, accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who are called deacons. Now, to my understanding, these Roman leaders only would persecute or torture people who are kind of recognized

Starting point is 00:19:05 authorities or leaders in the church. They wouldn't just pick some random person in the congregation and torture them. They would go to the leader. So while there might be some... Yeah. So there's question marks about the role of deacon. Was that an authoritative position? Is this even an office or are they just servants they just, you know, servants, which can, could, could be a reference to a leader. Leaders are called servants, but non-leaders are called servants too. So, but, but that does raise questions. You know, they're called deacons. They, they, um, they're the target of torturing. So again, uh, I, I'm not ready to say here's an example of, you know, two female pastors in early church, but it is a situation I think we would need to consider. You have a fecla in the apocryphal acts of Paul. So this is not an inspired account of Paul's journeys, but most scholars say that there was an actual historical thekla.

Starting point is 00:20:06 In fact, both Gregory and Basil spoke of thekla as a historical figure. Let's see. Are there other examples? I just kind of jotted down. You do have reference to older women in the early church using the phrase presbyter, like the female form of elder, basically. Now, elder could refer to a position. It could refer to an old man. Likewise, the female form of elder could refer to an old woman, like it does in 1 Timothy 5, 1 and 2. Or it could refer to a female position, a leadership position. Basil, the Cappadocian father, I believe, according to, where did I get

Starting point is 00:20:56 this from? Somebody that I read says that Basil uses Presbytera, that's a female form, in the sense of a woman who is the head of a religious community. Again, this is according to some article that I found that was documenting some of these things. So again, go fact check both me and this article. I can't remember where I got the article from. But yeah, so, and there's other examples I'm missing, but I think that's enough for you to chew on. So again, I'm not saying these are clear examples. I'm saying these are ones that are often referenced. Sorry about the phone call. I'm actually in a hotel room right now. I brought my portable mic. I'm in a hotel room, have a little thing here in a second. And I don't know

Starting point is 00:21:42 if you heard it, but earlier, some housekeepers banging on the door, wanting to clean my room. And I don't know if you heard that, but I paused it and had to get up and do that. And now the phone's ringing. And anyway, I've never been so disturbed in a hotel room before. All right. Next question here. This is kind of a sensitive one. I got to be careful with how I respond to this one. Okay. So next question says, church services often feel like a weekly event or performance. And like, you know, it's the main way of being part of a church is you attend a church service. How do we practically move away from this? And the reason why I added that caveat is just because, I added a caveat is just because, you know, I talked about this at last year's Exiles of Babylon conference that, you know, I said I have a love-hate relationship with the church. That could be jarring to some, the word hate and church in the same sentence.

Starting point is 00:22:36 But, you know, I hope that I explained what I actually meant by that. by that. I have nothing but a love relationship with the gathering of believers and what that gathering is intended to look like. The sharing of resources, the exuberant hospitality, the breaking of bread, the drinking of wine, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the prayers, confession, the deep, rich fellowship where your spiritual bond runs deeper than blood. You call each other brother and sister and mean it and so on and so forth. All that New Testament stuff, I absolutely love. I think certain attempted expressions to capture that vision don't always hit the mark. And sometimes when the ones that don't hit the mark, I'm just not really jazzed about. So yeah, so I wrestle with that. And I wrestle with, we don't live in the first century. And guess what? The first century

Starting point is 00:23:38 church wasn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean, read first Corinthians or pretty much every other letter Paul wrote. Churches were... They were a mess, okay? So I don't want to glamorize a first century church either. And also, I think throughout my Christian journey, sometimes I think I may have gone too far at criticizing certain things in the church when I maybe don't balance it out by really praising and honoring the good intentions, at least, that church leaders have in how they're trying to reach people, how they're trying to create community. And it doesn't all fall on the church and leaders. Sometimes followers or non-leaders in a church suck and just don't know how to engage people well. So it's complicated.

Starting point is 00:24:32 It's complicated. Both the question is complicated and how to improve the weekly gathering or the weekly rhythm of church, how to improve that is complicated. And I think our response, our complaints, our concerns are also complex. So anyway, I am not... Hey friends, I hope you enjoyed this portion of the Patreon-only Q&A podcast. If you would like to listen to the full-length episode and receive other bonus content like monthly podcasts, opportunities to ask questions, access to first drafts of my research and monthly Zoom chats and more, then please head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to join Theology in the Raw's Patreon community. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.

Theology in the Raw - S2: Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, Rick Warren, Female Leaders in the Early Church, and much more: Q & A with Preston Sprinkle

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.