Do Christians Practice Bigotry?

Just because people surrender to Jesus Christ doesn’t mean they are living and thinking like the Lord would desire. The apostle Paul spoke about the need to “NOT” be conformed to the thinking of the world but to be “TRANSFORMED” in our thinking so our choices and actions would be pleasing to the Lord and our lives would be blessed. The problem is that we so often exchange transformation of thinking for learning doctrine, which often hardens our hearts rather than making them softer towards the Lord. Transformation is a process rather than a belief and transformation doesn’t happen without God’s help and our cooperation.

Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

If our minds are not challenged by the word of God and the voice of the Holy Spirit regularly, we retain much of the wrong thinking that we had before we were converted.  Our minds are either edified and built up by the world’s reasoning or by the Lord.  To think biblically means that we need to constantly be adjusting our thinking and reasoning to align with God or the world will make us religious instead of being relational with God.

The definition of “BIGOTRY” is as follows:

To be obstinate or have intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices.

You may ask what does bigotry have to do with transformation. It is often a characteristic of professing Christians because they have not been changed in the way they look at the world, at themselves or at others. Not too long ago in American history, many professing Christians in the south incorporated a belief in Christ and brutal salivary. They justified harsh treatment of black people to justify their greed for wealth and prosperity. Today, we don’t support slavery yet we still justify how wrong our thinking is about the Christian life because we learned and loved doctrine instead of letting the Holy Spirit train our thinking to reflect biblical patterns of reason and love.  We still think with worldly reason. In truth, we think with bigotry. The apostle Paul made it very clear the just having scripture distorts our lives and kills us rather than giving us life as we expected.

2 Corinthians 3:6

Who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The topic of bigotry is still in some circles of Christian thinking concerning the role of women in ministry in America. Either they deny women the right and privilege of preaching or being pastors or they go to the other extreme of promoting women to being senior pastors of leadership in the church. Both these positions are extreme thinking in the body of Christ because people fail to let the Holy Spirit guide their beliefs and practices.  Instead, they combine worldly reasoning and religious training together and thus bigotry is formed. The end result is that we deny the lessons of the past in scripture.  An example is the scripture in the book of Judges about a women being the spiritual and governmental leader for Israel. God used godly leadership in a woman because that was who was available to use even though culture at that time was male dominated.

Judges 21:25

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The example in the book of Judges is the story of Deborah. Here is a time in Israel’s history when everyone did what was right in their own minds.  In other words, they were thinking like the world while believing they were God’s chosen people. I believe it is so easy to lose our walk with the Holy Spirit and still think we are pleasing to the Lord. Our ignorance or our bigotry blocks the voice and revelation that God wants to impart and thus we call ourselves believers when in practice we may not be. In this case, God raises up this woman of God to be a prophetess and a national leader during a terrible time in Israel’s history. Many Christians today can’t receive or believe that God would not only accept a woman in leadership but actually put her in such a powerful position. They are convinced that a few passages in Timothy in 1 Corinthians justifies their closed minds towards the subject and many who have such a belief are militant against women in leadership.

Judges 4:4

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging (leading) Israel at that time.

Deborah was the leading prophet during her time and people came from far and wide to receive divine guidance from her because she could hear from God. Today, Christian churches still deny women lead roles strictly because they are women. It doesn’t seem to matter if they can hear from God or if they live a godly life, they can’t lead because they are a woman. If this is not an example of bigotry I don’t know what is and, just to be clear, I do believe the man should be the leader of the family and the same in the church but if the husband is not spirit led at home or the church a woman should lead.

Although Jesus elevated women in a greater way compared to the Jewish culture of his day, we still think women should take a back seat when it comes to church leadership.  The ministry of Jesus was supported financially by women who had received the miracle of healing and deliverance and thus they gave towards his traveling ministry and even traveled with the twelve main disciples.

Luke 8:2-3

Also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.

Does this mean that women should not speak in church services today? It is clear from 1 Corinthians 11:5 that women prayed and prophesied in public worship. It is also clear in chapters 12-14 of the same book that women are given spiritual gifts and are encouraged to exercise them in the body of Christ. Women have much to contribute and should participate in worship services.  To not allow women to exercise the gifts of the spirit like men is a crime towards the Lord and his body..

In the Corinthian culture, women were not allowed to confront men in public. Apparently, some of the women who had become Christians thought that their Christian freedom gave them the right to question the men in public worship out loud. This was causing division in the church so Paul addressed it for this church. In addition, women of that day did not receive formal religious education as the men did. Women may have been raising questions in the worship services that could have been answered at home without disrupting the services yet they seemed to be unruly. Paul was asking the women not to flaunt their Christian freedom during worship but to be submissive to leadership and their husbands. The purpose of Paul’s words was to promote unity, not to teach against women’s roles in the church, other than when women were unruly and disruptive. Even churches that deny women leadership roles today would never tell women to shut up and be quiet in church and yet that is exactly what many seem to believe scripture teaches.

1 Corinthians 14:34

The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.

Instead of looking at the whole of scripture many believers “COMPARTMENTALIZE” concepts and doctrines that are in conflict with each other. Take, for instance, the story of the woman at the well who was convinced Jesus was the Messiah.  She ran to town where she was not accepted and evangelized to everyone so well that the town came running out to see Jesus. Would we deny her a leadership role when God clearly used her to evangelize to a whole town?

John 4:28-30

So the woman left her water pot, and went into the city and said to the men, Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

Consider what you believe not just about women in leadership but other areas of your walk with the Lord and let the Holy Spirit help you see if you have had some bigotry that hinders your growth in the Lord. We all can have blind spots in our theology no matter how long we have walked with God.

Questions:

1) Have you ever looked at your beliefs and felt the Holy Spirit tugging on your heart to investigate that belief against the whole of scripture? Remember again 2 Cor 3:6

2) Have you been prejudiced against women in leadership?  If so, why? Maybe it’s because you study doctrine rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth.

Letting the Holy Spirit challenge our bias,

Pastor Dale