SBC Voices, a blog for Southern Baptist pastors, is going all-in for the defense of women in the pulpit. In doing so, they are either leaving behind their biblically literate congregants or – worse yet – leading them astray.
I’m convinced that there is no corner of the religious blogosphere that is as hopelessly ignorant, purposefully imbecilic, doctrinally ill-informed, and grotesquely self-unaware as the bloggers at SBC Voices. A group blog of Southern Baptist pastors who clearly love their denomination more than Jesus or the Scripture, these virtue-signaling denominational fanboys are grotesquely aloof, and nothing demonstrates that as much as the frequency with which they change their theological positions.
Do you remember back when Southern Baptist pastors – including the ones at SBC Voices – uniformly rejected women in the pulpit (at least during the Lord’s Day assembly and to mixed-gender audiences)? That was, what, last week?
Ah, but the SBC has gone ‘woke,’ and like reeds shaking in the shifting winds, these gutless lemmings are sticking their wet pinkies into the air to decide which direction to bend.
We warned you about Beth Moore more than a decade ago. Chiefly, we warned you that (A) she handles the Scriptures like a dyslexic chimpanzee (B) is increasingly wild-eyed in her charismatic claims as a conduit to God and (C) will not be content preaching to women, but desires to have the role of a man. We warned you. We warned you. We warned you. We warned you. We warned you.
As the crazy prophetess grew increasingly entwined with heretics like Joyce Meyer and Christine Caine, the Southern Baptist elite and the Intelligentsia wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with her. Beth Moore was marketed to weak-willed women and neglected housewives. However, as she became a vocal proponent of ‘woke’ evangelicalism, the SBC elite began to see her as more and more helpful to their cause.
And so, when Beth Moore decided to finally come out and tell us bluntly what we have been telling you all along – that she believes women should be preaching to men during regular church assemblies – the ‘amen’ choir of SBC Voices nodded their approval between potluck belches.
Adam Blosser wrote a post at SBC Voices drawing the line at female pastors, but saying he’d support female preachers during Sunday assemblies (it’s funny how the line is always drawn at what is currently happening). In the post, he claimed it was just a minor doctrinal disagreement, nothing to get worked up about.
Dave Miller, aka The Company Man™️, wrote a post at SBC Voices calling the controversy a “tempest in a teapot.” Women preaching to men, Miller argued, was an “overblown brouhaha, among many overblown kerfuffles.” He blamed the outrage, predictably, upon Reformed people who, you know, believe the Bible and stuff. Dave Miller hates discernment like the devil hates the Gospel. He is a laissez-faire theologian, and never saw a doctrinal belief he couldn’t tolerate unless it was doctrinal intolerance.
However, it’s this post by Brent Hobbs, who we’ve written about previously here, that really takes the cake. In his post at SBC Voices, Hobbs shows all the Biblical acumen of a United Methodist who grew up reading Rachel Held Evans books. His church should fire him just for the sheer embarrassment of him.
In a post entitled, Cooperation and the Complexity on the Question of Women Preaching, Hobbs (as you would expect from the title) argues that the question regarding whether or not women should be preaching at church is “complicated.”
It’s not.
The question has never been complicated in the SBC, since at least the days of the Conservative Resurgence. Until the ‘Great Awokening’ began, Hobbs didn’t think it was complicated. But alas, men like Hobbs, Blosser, and Miller don’t have thoughts of their own. Their thoughts are assigned to them by Southern Baptist leaders, who might give them a doggy treat and a pat on the head at the next convention meeting.
Hobbes argues that there is a disparity between the style of worship as modeled in the Scripture and that in our modern services (maybe in his church, but ours is modeled after the New Testament, so he should fix whatever kind of garbage he has going on at New Song Fellowship in Virginia Beach).
Speaking of this disparity, Hobbes says:
I specifically mention this because of the inclusion of prophecy in New Testament worship.
Women did prophesy in the church service in New Testament times.
If your view of Christian worship prohibits women from speaking (1) to the entire gathering (2) in a meaningful way (that includes exhortation and imperative verb form), then you should certainly stop pretending that your view matches the New Testament.
Brent Hobbs is a moron. I don’t feel the word is too strong.
From where did Hobbs get the impression that women prophesied in the gathered assembly? Does the man know the Bible? Mercy sakes, this is a pastor.
Let me help Brent out.
Women ‘prophesying’ in the New Testament era (post-ascension) includes only two occurrences. The first is Acts 21:9, which includes a brief reference to Philip’s daughters. In this instance, they prophesied in their own home.
The second occurrence is in Revelation 2:18-29 and the woman is prophesying in the church of Thyatira and is rebuked by Jesus. I mean, hellooooo. The only woman who is recorded as prophesying in the church is rebuked.
However, the quintessential text regarding females prophesying in the church is in 1 Corinthians 14. This passage explicitly references females prophesying in the gathered assembly.
26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church (1 Corinthians 14:26-35).
So here, Paul gives instructions for use of the Apostolic sign gifts, which were commonplace during a church age with Apostles. Because things were to be done decently and in order, they were to prophesy one at a time. Women, however, were not to prophesy. They were not permitted to speak to the assembly. For to do so, is shameful.
A better question might be, “If a woman wasn’t even permitted to share God’s words in the assembly, why should they blather their own?”
Does Brent Hobbs even Bible? He has all the doctrinal acumen of someone who was catechized by Beth Moore Bible studies.
I’d be ashamed to be his mother. If I was his dog, I would run away. If I was his wife, I’d sleep on the couch. His argument is just that bad. It’s imbecilic.
All the posts at SBC Voices have thus far argued that they are complementarian, but there are different “kinds” of complementarians, some of whom allow female preachers. I’ll not sit by and let them abuse words and definitions this way, or to revise history. I’ll address their notion of these supposed different kinds of complementarianism in a forthcoming post, and I plan to skewer it in characteristic fashion.
