10-2-15 No More Gender Division

Summation By Mr Duncan Heaster

Well I think the fundamental issue that we are talking about really here tonight is the issue of authority. Are we really humble to the word of God? Are we reading that book and saying, “Well, that is the bottom line for me, and that is going to guide my thinking in all issues of my life, in my basic doctrine and in the practical issues?” That, it seems to me, is the fundamental point.

It is not a matter of personal experience, church history or whatever.

And again I cannot help but point out that Jacquie has fallen back on this argument that Paul’s clear commandments about women not speaking in the church are effectively not inspired, because she said some of the things he said were from Jesus, other things weren’t, and he’s only speaking for the present moment.

Well Paul doesn’t say that. He does not say he’s only speaking for the present moment. There were times when he reiterated. By way of allusion to the gospel records, the message of Jesus about some issues regarding marriage. So that’s what he’s referring to when he says, “What I am telling you now is actually what the Lord says”, in other words, “You read Matthew 18 and 19 and you will find what I am saying.” in other things he is saying, “Well I am telling you this new, Christ didn’t say this”, but it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t inspired to say that!

Now we are not debating, or whatever you want to call it, discussing tonight, semantics; issues which are just at the periphery of our Christian experience. We’re standing up here tonight with the Biblical perspective and we are giving you a very clear message. We believe that there’s only one God and that Christ is the Son of God; therefore he is not the same as God, he is not part of a trinity, he is the Son of God.

In some ways he was at one with the Father spiritually, but ultimately he was subject to the Father as he said, “my Father is greater than I.” And throughout the ages of eternity in the kingdom age, we are told in 1 Corinthians 15, the Son will be subject to the Father.

Now we’ve got to somehow become “in Christ” in the same way as God created Adam, and then Eve was taken out of Adam, and yet later on she was reckoned, as it were, as being part of Adam. That was because she was reckoned as being “in Adam.” So then Adam was like Christ. They pierced his side on the cross and there flowed out blood and water to symbolise how his bride, his spiritual bride, that is the church, would be taken out of his side as it were through the blood and water, through the water of baptism and through the blood of Calvary. And so we, as it were, have got to be like Eve we’ve got to be taken out of Christ so that in a sense we can be in Christ. We get in Christ by being baptised into him.

Now as I said at the beginning, I think there’s a lot of very honest people here, and the questions you’ve asked me are indicators of people who are intellectually honest and who are seeking something. Now I would suggest that there is now an awful lot of people in the orthodox church, perhaps there are some of you here tonight, who are looking for something, who are feeling that something is missing in your church and in your Christianity, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is.

Well we’re offering you a kind of personal action plan if you like tonight. We’ve pointed out that there’s some major doctrinal problems on a fundamental level in popular Christianity. For example, in the relationship between God and Christ, and the whole idea of having a priesthood. And in this idea that baptism is by sprinkling. We’ve got to be baptised as adults into Christ, and then we can have this great relationship with him.

Perhaps you’re starting to see that in fact there’s a whole area in your spiritual life that you’ve been ignorant of; we all have to come at some time in our lives to a point where we accept that there may be a lot of things in our spiritual life and in the Bible that we have been missing out on.

What we would suggest to you is that at the bookstall at the back you pick up this little plan. It’s called the Bible Companion, and through reading a few chapters every day you will be able to read through the whole Bible in the course of a year, and to us that is the only way to do it, that’s the only way to have a reasoned faith, that’s the only way to get away from this confusion which must be in the minds of many of you here tonight: to read the Bible for yourself. No one else can do it for you, a church leader or a pastor can’t do it for you, you’ve got to read it for yourself

But of course you need guidance and there’s plenty of literature there at the back, there’s a correspondence course where you can answer our questions, or there’s another study manual there that you can pick up which you read, and the idea is that you write and ask us questions, whatever suits you.

That literature at the back is there to help you and if you are starting to feel I won’t say if you are starting to feel that we are right, because I don’t suppose anyone will stand up and say, “O well you people are completely right,” in the course of two hours tonight... But if you are starting to feel the urgency to do something about your position, please do keep in touch.

But what we are trying to get you to do is to get back to the Bible for yourself. We’re not interested in numbers, we’re not exactly a big organisation anyway, we are interested in men and women really getting back to the basic teaching of the Bible so that they can be in Christ, so that they can have this dynamic relationship between us and the Lord Jesus Christ, just as we have through being baptised into Christ, so that in the church there is this positive interaction between male and female, just like there is between God and Christ, and as there is between Christ and his church.

And so then it’s now really over to you. We would really plead with you not to give yourself any rest in your own mind until you’ve got these issues ironed out, and it is possible. Yet is possible to get these things ironed out. This is not a theological debate, it’s quite simple. People the world over, from Nigeria as Jacquie has been saying, right up here to the West Midlands are capable of sitting down with prayer to God and a Bible in their hand with a bit of guidance from somebody or other, a bit of literature to just provoke them to think down the right lines, and to sort these issues out.

Now just as a parting thought, here we are, men and women, from all walks of life, sitting here trying to be genuine, sincere Christians, and yet there’s this tremendous division and difference of understanding between us. Now that needn’t continue, because there’s only one Bible, there’s only one truth, there’s only one spirit of God, and it is possible to come to correct doctrine and therefore to fellowship together, around those correct doctrines.

Now that means that we are not here tonight just as passing ships in the night, but that if each of us really does get down to this personal action plan I’ve mentioned, reading the Bible for ourselves, praying to God, trying to be humble to his word, then we will not be passing ships in the night, but we will all of us come together into that glorious kingdom of God which will soon be established, we believe, here on this earth when the Lord Jesus Christ will return to this earth, when there will then be no more gender division, but there will be that unity of the spirit throughout eternity.

Now that’s not just a nice parting shot, that is the hope of the gospel, and that is the message that we’re putting out to you tonight. We have approached this dialogue with prayer and we really do hope that those of you here tonight who are confused, who are searching for something, and I know there are some of you here just like that, will take hold of your Bibles, pray to God and God will surely hear you. And if we keep humble to his word, and that goes for the lot of us here tonight, we will ultimately come together in that glorious unity of the kingdom of God.

So goodnight, God bless, and may God give you travelling mercies as you go home, and may he guide us each one into all truth.

Chairman

Thank you Duncan. I am sure, Jacquie, you would like to have a few words in response. You have the opportunity now.