Woman Fired From Baptist Church

First Baptist Church of Watertown, N.Y., fired Mary Lambert for being a woman. They claim the Bible told them to do it.

When this story broke last week, all we could think of was the dedication with which our mother taught Sunday school for so many years. Now this lady, who sounds a lot like her, was fired. The new pastor said it's because she's a woman. Upon further questioning, the sleaze implied there were "other reasons" which he could not get into because of Christian charity (some charity). But the fact remains that his public reason is bad enough.

I wasn't surprised that the biblical injunctions all come from Paul's epistles, though. Boy, talk about a guy who had issues with women.

Woman Fired From Baptist Church
(Baptist Response)

Actually, the church in this article is not scripturally right. They have just interpreted it their own little way. That's why the Bible includes references to righteous women who did have authority like Esther, the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 who buys a field, Timothy's mother and grandmother, Deborah (a judge in Israel), Rahab, and Mary (mother of Jesus). In Acts Peter says that your sons and daughters will prophesy. And even Paul said that both sexes have equal standing before Christ (Galatians 3:28). In Ephesians 5:25 Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and "gave himself up for her." In other words a husband is to give up his life for his wife. The customs at the time were so different than they are now (at least in civilized societies) that any affirmation of women was extraordinary. The church has struggled with society's customs but the Bible has always had wisdom about the worth of each individual (male or female).

I had to laugh when two of the children of Billy Graham were being interviewed about their dad and the newsperson kept asking Franklin about assuming the role of Billy as preacher. Franklin is doing incredible work but Billy's daughter Anne Graham Lotz is an incredible preacher (speaker). I've heard her speak about how a woman was chosen to be the first to see Jesus after his resurrection and was to go tell the disciples, so actually a woman was the first evangelist! At that time in history a woman was not allowed to testify in court.