Jason Gray

Beth Moore preached a Sunday sermon at Josh Howerton’s Lakepointe (SBC) Church on Mother’s Day in May of 2021. She has preached to men many, many times. Don’t let her tweet today fool you into thinking she’s against women preaching to men.

“Particular Baptists, regardless of differences in the presentation of the covenant of grace [i.e., whether they taught the CoG was established with Abraham (“one substance multiple administrations”) or was only promised and then inaugurated in Christ], agreed on credo-covenantalism; that is, that the covenant of grace required faith to be in force. Without faith granted by the Holy Spirit, there is no entry in the covenant of grace (John 3:3–6).” —Pascal Denault (pg. 123n40)

Things that are true 1. Your church can call whomever they want to be their pastor. 2. Believing that only qualified men can serve as pastors is not anti-woman. 3. The SBC can choose not to cooperate with a church in clear violation of the BF&M 2000.

Major concept-creep with the title pastor/shepherd. Many churches are confusing pastoring/shepherding with discipleship. All believers are called to make disciples and to love and care for one another in the body according to our giftings. Pastoring, however, is an office, and the main functions are leadership, protection, and provision. Shepherds also have a responsibility to lead, protect, and provide for the entire flock (not just parts of it). Jesus is the good shepherd who goes an finds the one lost sheep. Why? Because he's responsible for all the sheep. Likewise, a pastor has to give an account for the way he exercises his authority and care over the entire flock. That is a key and unique accountability for pastors that is lost on many people. And it's why they are misconstruing what the office of pastor is. It's also why women can't be pastors. God doesn't call them to have authority or leadership over the entire flock. Women should be using their gifts to disciple women and other children, but they shouldn't call that work "pastoring." It's a fudamental misunderstanding of the term when people do that.

A friend of mine returned from TGC this past week and said that some of the people he met there were saying that women can "shepherd" disciples in the church. (Many limited this to "shepherding" other women, while others did not. Some even used the word "pastor" as a title for women's ministry in the church.) I have no idea whether this is the official position of those with authority at TGC, but I do know that these sorts of language games are slippery slopes that often precede full-blown egalitarianism, whether those engaging in such language realize this or not. Besides all this, referring to the activity of women (or unordained men) in the church as "shepherding" lacks biblical precedent. The verb ποιμαίνω (to shepherd) is only used 11 times in the NT. It refers to: 1. The ruling activity of Jesus (Matt. 2:6; Rev. 2:27; 7:17; 12:5; 19:15) 2. The literal activity of shepherding literal animals (Luke 17:7; 1 Cor. 9:7) 3. The activity of apostles and elders as overseers of the flock of God (John 21:16; Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:12) 4. The activity of false teachers who feed themselves instead of caring for God's people (Jude 1:12) That's it. Thus, the burden of proof is on those who want to make the case that women can "shepherd" in some sense other than how the Scriptures use the term. The same goes for the noun form of "shepherd" (ποιμήν), which is used 17 times to refer to: 1. Literal shepherds of literal sheep (Luke 2:8, 15, 18, 20) 2. The role of Jesus vis-à-vis the people of God (Matt. 9:36; 25:32; 26:31; Mark 6:34; 14:27; John 10:2, 11, 12, 14, 16; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 2:25) 3. The role of "pastors [shepherds] and teachers" (Eph. 4:11), which shares a single definite article in the Greek [τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους], linking the two terms as either being (a) synonymous or (b) related in some categorical fashion. Dan Wallace argues for the latter in his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, saying that Paul seems to envision a distinction between pastors who shepherd and pastors who both shepherd and teach with authority (cf. 1 Tim. 5:17). Many people stake their entire argument for "women shepherds" on Ephesians 4:11, but, once again, this goes against the hermeneutical principle of clearer texts interpreting less clear texts. And since the NT never uses the noun or verb forms of "shepherd" to refer to anyone except Jesus, literal shepherds of literal animals, elders/overseers, and false teachers, there is simply no warrant for using the unclear and unhelpful language of women "shepherding" in the church. Why not stick closer to the way the Bible speaks? Why not speak of "teaching what is good" [καλοδιδασκάλους] as Paul does in Titus 2:4, where they "encourage [σωφρονίζωσι] the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled" (Titus 2:5)? I suspect the reason so many are eager to use biblical words in extra-biblical ways is because they think it will be a pressure-release valve for the mounting pressure conservative churches feel as the Western world moves further and further away from a biblical vision of the sexes. This won't end well, and if you're part of a church that is flirting with this sort of terminology, I'd urge to you reconsider your course before you slide further from how the Scriptures speak about these matters.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Friday.

E.Y. Mullins did more damage to the SBC than people realize. We’re still cleaning up the things he set in motion over 100 years later.