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Symposium on the Role of Women in the Church
(Zondervan, 1984-08-28)
The Biblical Research Institute (BRI) of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
has been involved since 1972 with committees, councils, and research papers on the roles of
women in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At times they were encouraged to believe that the
papers written on the subject could be published for the benefit of concerned individuals within
the church and the information of similar persons outside the membership of the church.*
Until the present time there have been various factors which have led the administrative
leadership of the church to postpone such publication. The general reason given for the
reluctance to publish was the fear that certain countries in the world family of Adventist
churches would be embarrassed, if not offended, by actions that could result in placing women in
leadership roles in the church, the home, the school, or the family.
Persons or organizations hearing of the existence of these papers could purchase copies
from the Biblical Research office. Some copies have been distributed under these terms. Now the
BRI’s Administrative Committee has voted to publish this set of papers. The following provides
an overview of them so that the reader may better anticipate their contents.
One of the issues receiving the attention of Christian churches in the past fifteen years has
been the roles that the women of these churches can best fulfill. This subject is of particular
concern to those women who feel that they have been, or are, prevented from carrying out certain
roles in the church, for which they believe they have a competency or a potential capacity.
Others share their concern.
It is of interest also to those—both men and women—who are aroused by present-day
agitation in society for women to be freely admitted to those areas from which custom and
tradition have hitherto excluded them. Such persons want to know whether and how the church is
affected by, and is relating to, this general movement in society—how it is treating its women.
For many, the church’s profession of Christ is judged on this issue.
Reasonable Faith Christian Truth and Apologetics
(Crossway Books, 2008-08-08) WILLIAM LANE CRAIG
What is apologetics? Apologetics (from the Greek apologia: a defense) is that
branch of Christian theology which seeks to provide a rational justification for
the truth claims of the Christian faith. Apologetics is thus primarily a theoretical
discipline, though it has a practical application. In addition to serving, like the rest
of theology in general, as an expression of loving God with all our minds, apolo
getics specifically serves to show to unbelievers the truth of the Christian faith, to
confirm that faith to believers, and to reveal and explore the connections between
Christian doctrine and other truths. As a theoretical discipline, then, apologet
ics is not training in the art of answering questions, or debating, or evangelism,
though all of these draw upon the science of apologetics and apply it practically.
T
his implies that a course in apologetics is not for the purpose of teaching you,
“If he says so-and-so, then you say such-and-such back.” Apologetics, to repeat,
is a theoretical discipline that tries to answer the question, What rational warrant
can be given for the Christian faith? Therefore, most of our time must be spent in
trying to answer this question.
Now this is bound to be disappointing to some. They’re just not interested in the
rational justification of Christianity. They want to know, “If someone says, ‘Look at
all the hypocrites in the church!’ what do I say?” There’s nothing wrong with that
question; but the fact remains that such practical matters are logically secondary
to the theoretical issues and cannot in our limited space occupy the center of our
attention. The use of apologetics in practice ought rather to be an integral part of
courses and books on evangelism.
African Hermeneutics
(Langham Publisher, 2019-09-09) Elizabeth Mburu
|| Seco the Bible is always a challenging task. To be more precise,
interpreting the Bible accurately is a challenging task. And yet the Bible
is meant to be understood and applied in the daily lives of believers if it
is to be a guide for faith and practice.
African readers of the Bible face the additional challenge that most
of the models and methods of Bible interpretation, or hermeneutics, are
rooted in a Western context. This is not surprising given that Christianity
came to Africa from the West, the churches and theological institutions
that were founded were missionary led, and most of the theological
resources are produced by Western writers. Millions of Africans therefore
use “foreign” approaches to the interpretation of the Bible. This may be
one of the reasons why many African Christians experience a dichotomy
in their Christian lives. While the content of Christianity may be known
and perhaps even understood, practice is not often consistent with this
knowledge. This book is an attempt to address this problem by providing
the reader with a contextualized, African intercultural approach to the
study of the Bible.
Part I provides a foundation for this intercultural approach by outlining
principles that address the issue of this dichotomy and provide a solution
through a contextualized hermeneutic. Since Bible interpretation can
never be done in a vacuum, this contextualized hermeneutic begins with
an exploration of African worldviews. Part I also presents a four-legged
stool model that guides the reader in examining the text using four
interrelated steps. Specific application of the biblical text to the African
context is viewed as the logical endpoint of this process. The review
questions at the end of each chapter in Part I are intended to help the
reader think more critically about the African contextual issues that affect
accurate interpretation of the Bible.
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth:A Guide to Understanding the Bible
(Zondervan, 1993-03-13) Gordon D. Fee; Douglas Stuart
Every so often we meet someone who says with great feeling, “You
don’t have to interpret the Bible; just read it and do what it says.”
Usually, such a remark reflects the layperson’s protest against the
“professional” scholar, pastor, teacher, or Sunday school teacher,
who, by “interpreting,” seems to be taking the Bible away from the
common man or woman. It is their way of saying that the Bible is
not an obscure book. “After all,” it is argued, “any person with half
a brain can read it and understand it. The problem with too many
preachers and teachers is that they dig around so much they tend to
muddy the waters. What was clear to us when we read it isn’t so clear
anymore.”
There is a lot of truth in that protest. We agree that Christians
should learn to read, believe, and obey the Bible. And we especially
agree that the Bible should not be an obscure book if studied and
read properly. In fact we are convinced that the single most serious
problem people have with the Bible is not with a lack of under
standing, but with the fact that they understand most things too
well! The problem with such a text as “Do everything without com
plaining or arguing” (Phil. 2:14), for example, is not with under
standing it, but with obeying it—putting it into practice.
Grasping God’s Word A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible
(Zondervan, 2012-12-22) J. Scott Duvall
This is a wonderful user-friendly book for serious readers who desire
to journey into the world of the Bible in order better to understand
and to live faithfully in today’s world. J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel
Hays have chosen an apt title: Grasping God’s Word. The metaphor of
grasping is a useful one for thinking through what is involved in
biblical interpretation. As you embark on that lifelong journey, as
well as the shorter one of studying the present work, it may be
useful to keep four senses of the term in mind.
To begin with, “grasping” is an act of violence: “to seize
greedily.” This is not what the present authors intended! It is,
however, what many so-called “postmodern” readers think about
the process of interpretation. In our disenchanted, disbelieving age,
many no longer believe that there is a “meaning” in texts.
Interpretation is more like a power struggle in which the reader
imposes or forces his or her will on the text: This is what it means to
me. In the opinion of many contemporary readers, we can never see
beyond ourselves so as to attain an “objective” meaning. For these
postmodern readers, there is no such thing as “correct”
interpretation.
Grasping God’s Word lays great emphasis on the importance of
observing the small details and the overall design of biblical texts.
Yet Duvall and Hays are not unaware of the current skeptical trend.
They well know that the observer-reader is not an impersonal
recording device, but rather a person with a speci c identity,
history, and cultural background — all of which a ect what one
sees. Readers are not godlike, hovering in disembodied fashion over
literary creations; no, readers, like authors, are rooted in particular
historical situations — in what our authors call “towns.”