Everywhere our team travels we get questions, often variations on the same theme. Sometimes the questions are submitted in search of information, and other times individuals are in search of a platform to espouse personal views. I thought you might enjoy some typical questions from recent ministerial councils.
Over the years, there have been differences of opinions expressed by pastors in respect to head covering by women and wedding rings. Please, we need to have one teaching and understanding on this issue.
Here the questioner requests the impossible. Recognizing that differences of opinions have existed for years, he pleads for one consistent teaching. I'm reminded of a training convention for local church elders that I conducted in West Jamaica. Several hundred participants, including a significant number of women elders, listened as a man enquired whether it was custom or doctrine that demanded a woman wear a hat to church. My tongue-in-cheek answer was that in my culture it was custom but that in his culture it appeared to be both custom and doctrine. Then I closed the subject with admonition that in matters of women's hat styles and dress preferences we ought, as men, to remain silent.
Issues regarding wedding rings have been settled among Adventists for decades. Wearing, or not wearing, wedding rings is entirely a personal conviction of the individual members, and no pastor or elder may impose his or her personal view on anyone else.
Without any bias, is it possible to prove from the Bible, with specific passages, that women should be allowed to preach in the church?
First, let me state that it is nearly impossible to answer any question with out bias from our own background, culture, spiritual experience, or educational training. I'm sure the questioner believed I would be biased since my wife, Sharon, had just preached an excellent sermon at that Bible Conference.
A simple answer, of course, is No! There are no texts that command women to preach in church. Proof texting our way to answers, however, may be the weakest approach to finding truth. Scripture and our own denominational heritage provide ample examples of women preaching. For example, the Samaritan woman at the well was the first individual whom Jesus commissioned as a public evangelist. She had amazing results. Mary, fresh from meeting Jesus at the tomb, was the first to preach His resurrection. Her results were not as great. Although her message was comprehended, Jesus later scolded His disciples for refusing to believe her proclamation. Priscilla held such an esteemed leadership role that she instructed other preachers, and our own Adventist heritage has relied on the effective preaching and writings of Ellen G. White's prophetic role. If you still need a proof text, try Galatians 3, in which the apostle declares, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Our church's polity decision to not ordain women should not be con fused with the Lord's call for every believer to proclaim His Word.
Is it our doctrine to force someone to marry a woman he has impregnated after the church board has disfellowshipped them?
The timing of the board's action has nothing to do with the issue except to remove the church board as party to the discussion.
Premarital sexual relations are a sin. They are also a reality. Perhaps the church should offer much more in pre marital education, especially to young people, with the aim of avoiding sinful situations more than punishing sinners.
The answer to sin is repentance, confession, forgiveness, and walking in new life. Marrying an individual with whom you have sinned does not atone for those sins. Marriage certificates do not move past behavior from the prohibited column to the approved column. That would be salvation by works.
I want to be further illuminated on the theology of rebaptism.
So do I. But the scriptures are silent beyond one passage (Acts 19:1-7), which tells of 12 believers who had been baptized by John in anticipatory faith of the coming Redeemer and who did not know the historic reality of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension. When they heard this good news, they were baptized again.
This unusual incident is insufficient to mandate that previously immersed believers ought to be rebaptized. Adventists have always maintained that an immersed person is welcomed into church fellowship by profession of faith in their previous baptism. The foot-washing service, which precedes Communion, is a tangible and spiritual reminder of cleansing that Jesus provides to all, and those seeking rebaptism should be directed first to this meaningful service. Our own manual, however,does require rebaptism for readmittance into the church for certain moral failures that have disgraced the church's witness in the community. Although there is no biblical text to "prove" this point of polity, any organization has the authority to establish rules by which it will govern itself.
Kindly tell us why people should eat the Lord's Supper apart from the 14th day of Nisan (the biblical date for Passover). Why does our church conduct Communion quarterly?
With the reality of the gospel being present in Himself as our Passover, Jesus clearly terminated ceremonial feasts that pointed forward in shadow to Him. Therefore, the date of Passover has no controlling relationship to the Communion service, which may be celebrated quarterly, weekly, monthly, or annually. Rather than prescribing a frequency schedule, Jesus simply stated, "As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of Me."
Is it wrong for a widowed pastor's wife to marry another man who is not a pastor? If so, why do widower pastors marry whomever they choose?
No, it is not wrong. The profession of a second marriage partner is not governed by the profession of the deceased, who know not anything. Cautionary counsel might be that many pastoral spouses have invested much of their lives in a public role that is accompanied by respect and a certain "sense of place" in the eyes of the membership. Such should never marry a mate of whom, subsequently, they would be embarrassed because their new spouse's job does not elicit the same level of prestige. If a potential spouse's status might cause your own loss of self-esteem, then avoid inflicting pain on them. Every spouse deserves love and respect for who they are rather than unfavorable comparison with who they are not.
Your questions? In areas of practics, theology, hermeneutics, polity, etc., we will seek input of scholars and pastors. Submit brief correspondence, headlined "Questions," to the postal or email addresses listed in the masthead.
