Church — Male and Female
Don’t let anyone bamboozle you.
If you read the article from The New York Times I linked to a few days ago, (and if you didn’t, I’ll link to it again below) it reported (as well as editorialized) about new research indicating for the first time in the US that more young men are becoming interested in attending churches compared with young women.
It went on to speculate why this might be, which is interesting perhaps, but not particularly important because, again, it’s the writer opining.
Today I would like to take the conversation in a different direction.
Rather than considering how church attendance is a competition between the sexes, indicating winners and losers, I want to think about how both males and females are necessary and potentially mutually blessed when they find and regularly attend a healthy church.
And by healthy I mean one that doesn’t just exist to grow and make everyone feel good for economic reasons, but one that is grounded in modeling the original church, the one we read about in the New Testament, chiefly in the book of Acts.
Another way to describe a healthy Christian church is to look for the attributes that Jesus would like to see manifested. Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate because he tells us in the book of Revelation. It’s found in chapters 2 and 3 where Jesus critiques seven churches in existence at that time.
Here are a few bullet points about what he said to each one.
Ephesus - hard working, good at rule keeping, and has lost its first love.
Smyrna - This was a small, poor and suffering church. Jesus is not critical with this one and tells believers there to endure through their time of tribulation because they will later see it was worth it in the end.
Pergamum - This church was allowing false and wicked teachings to creep in. Not good.
Thyatira - They were permitting a woman who is teaching false ideas — including sexual perversions openly. Its leaders were were weak and doing nothing about it. Also no bueno.
Sardis - This church had a reputation of being alive, but was actually spiritually dead. It played church. It was a facade, Jesus tells them to wake up before it’s too late.
Philadelphia - This church was doing what was right in Jesus’s eyes and so he was giving them an open door to share his message. He encourages them to keep fighting.
Laodicea This is often considered the best example of an American church today. He describes it as lukewarm — neither hot nor cold. Jesus says that he will spit (or vomit) them out of his mouth if they don’t radically change their ways.
Overall, according to Jesus, these churches, (and most, if not all, churches today) are generally a mess in need of help. This is caused by the sin nature of people — not a few, but all of us.
Yes there are hypocrites in churches, but it’s far worse (and better) than that.
Churches are filled with people in desperate need of salvation and fellowship.
With this in mind, let’s look at what churches need that men and women offer together that can restore church congregations to their first loves.
You see, one of the premises of The New York Times article is that the Bible’s instructions on how to manage a both a family and a church is for men to dominate. It is true that some Bible verses elevate, but I don’t think this was to be at the expense of women. Our best examples on how God views women is to see how Jesus treated them, and the way women managed home churches and cared for people in the book of Acts. These are powerful reminders of how important — even vital — their contributions were and still are.
Families and churches have a common enemy — one who wants to see them destroyed, and he always attempts to do this both from the outside and within. Men and women are their best selves when they fight for each other.
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
1 John 2:18-20 (ESV)
