SpeakOut 12/21

Friday, December 21, 2007

Call 471-6636

I was calling in about the person who put in the paper about the Church on the Rock. You know that's all good, but you know what? The Bible says if you got it, give it. You know it's a lot more than just giving somebody two or three presents or feeding them for two or three days. It means paying their utility bill for six months until they can get on their feet. If you got three houses, give them a house. That's what God says to do. You got three cars, give them a car. Bless them with money, it's all about the money. Y'all think you can get around the money by giving free food and baskets of this and baskets of that or give them a coat and you're okay. No, that's not what God says. God says help everybody. So pay somebody's rent for six months. Put God before money that's the main object. But when you go to reaching in your pocket you forget about God. You preach about Him all day long because the Lord laid this on my heart. Preach all day long son about my name 'cause it's free. When you go to dippin' in the pocket, look how fast they'll forget you. That's all I got to say. Check your Bible, read your Bible, read between the lines and get it right and God will bless you for it. If God has blessed you, you should bless others.

This is to anyone in the city of Blodgett. If you value your pet's life, keep it on a leash, in a pen or on a chain. Because I live in Blodgett, I have a pet and these dogs are terrorizing Blodgett. So if you want your pet alive, you better keep it on a leash. Otherwise, the ones of us who keep our pets in the house, in the yard or on a leash, we're not going to tolerate it any longer. There are two big dogs that run loose that want to terrorize every dog they see. For your own benefit and your pet's, this will not be tolerated from now on.

Being one of the women pastors in the area, I have read with great interest Rocking the Boat's SpeakOuts concerning women in the pulpit. I look at the latest of the SpeakOuts dated Dec. 5, 1 Timothy 1:12, 3:12 and I Corinthians 14:34-37 must not be taken away from the context in which they were written. "All of these passages are written against Jewish and Greek background in which the position of a woman was low. No man ever rose completely above the background of the age in which he lived and the society in which he grew up and Paul, in his conception of the place of women within the church, was unable to rise above the ideas which he had known all his life. And it was in society like that that Paul wrote these passages. It would certainly be very wrong to take these words out of their context and make them a universal rule for the church. All the things in these passages are merely temporary regulations to meet a given situation." We need to look at Galatians 3:28 to see Paul's permanent view on the matter. "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." All are eligible to serve Christ! Christ and Christianity emancipated women long before the Suffrage Act was ever thought about and "it was by wisely using freedom, not misusing it, that women came to hold the proud position in the Church which they hold today." The passage from Deuteronomy says nothing about this topic and Titus 1:6-9 talks about characteristics that all of us could well to have. In closing, if I fail to heed God's call to me to preach then I am committing a most deadly sin. Quotes by way of William Barclay.