Tough Questions for Christians March 11 Devotional
by David Joynt on March 11, 2023
Stress Test Devotional April 20
April 20, 2024
ROMANS 16:3-4, 15-16 | 3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus, 4 who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but also all the churches of the gentiles.
15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. 16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
GALATIANS 3:28 | 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Paul often cited by some as a defender of an approach to male and female roles and relations that stresses hierarchy and submission. This approach not only depends on a few selective verses, but it underplays the revolutionary character of his views within a first century patriarchal setting. In Romans, a list of church leaders to be greeted and honored has 10 female names (including my wife’s!). In Galatians, he undercuts the so called natural hierarchies of the day. Theologically and operationally he moves against the beliefs he inherited and the social context, employing women in leadership roles and making way for a radical equality.
Read all the names in Romans 16.
Are you instinctively an egalitarian?
Gracious God,
In many ways we are still catching up with Your will and ways two millennia after the life of Jesus. Help us to see people and not categories. We ask in Your holy name,
Amen.
