Record Live Podcast

Should women be ordained to ministry?
[00:00:00] Hi there, everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Zanita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church, faith, and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus, faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we put into practice. Let's go live.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Welcome once again to the Record Live podcast. This is part two of our conversation with Dr. Darius Jankovic about ordination. Today we'll focus on the hot topic of women's ordination. Zanida will be back with me next week, but as this was recorded some time ago, my co host is Mary Ellen Hakko.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Please enjoy the conversation.
Maryellen Hacko: Today is part two of the conversation that we had last week, and this has [00:01:00] been a very much anticipated, one with again, Dr. Darius Jankiewicz. So thank you again, Darius, for joining us for the second week.
Maryellen Hacko: We're really excited to see what other amazing insights that you have to share with us today. But before we dive into that , we just want to again state that this is a very big topic and it is one that typically can divide Adventists and Christians. So we do ask that if you have comments or questions, just Keep them kind because we can't answer them all in real time necessarily because we're, , talking and trying to do a hundred things at once.
Maryellen Hacko: So please be kind. , and also to clarify, this conversation this week is specifically or more specifically about women's ordination, but if you would like more context, , About the whole conversation we had last week, which is just on ordination itself. Do check out, you can go to our Facebook page, just go to our videos tab, and it should be there.
Maryellen Hacko: And also on Instagram, on YouTube, you can watch it as well. But Darius, for those who weren't here last week and don't have time to listen to a whole hour [00:02:00] broadcast before this one starts, do you mind just running us through briefly what we chatted about, , as a summary to start?
Darius Jankiewicz: Uh, well, the basic idea and welcome everybody.
Darius Jankiewicz: It's good to be here with you. , the basic idea of what I was trying to present is that we talk a lot about women's ordination, but we very rarely think about what ordination is , and where it came from. And we assume that it's in the Bible, but really the idea of ordination is not in the Bible.
Darius Jankiewicz: We've got laying on of hands in the Bible. The word does not appear in the Bible at all. Even , somebody asked me about the KJV version that says Jesus ordained the disciples. It's not the word ordained that the word is appointed. It's the interpretation of what happened, in KJV specifically, but the idea basically comes from the Roman empire.
Darius Jankiewicz: And then in the, by the end of second century, it merged with laying on of hands. And it began to indicate a promotion type of thing, setting somebody above somebody else and That was [00:03:00] unfortunate development led to a lot of issues in the church and to apostasy eventually That's another story, but that's basically the whole idea.
Darius Jankiewicz: The first of all, we need to talk about ordination of the church the nature of church nature and the mission of the church And then ministries of the church, and then we can talk about women's ordination rather than other way around. We often put the cart in front of the horse by talking about women's ordination first.
Darius Jankiewicz: So that's what we did last week.
Jarrod Stackelroth: We did, and if you didn't catch that conversation, I really would recommend it. , we covered the Reformation, we covered how church works, I guess the structure and the purpose of church or ecclesiology. , it was a really fascinating conversation, right? I believe today's going to be just as interesting.
Jarrod Stackelroth: , but for those who don't know, maybe you didn't, , catch last week, Darius is the ministerial and field secretary for the South Pacific Division.
Darius Jankiewicz: Um,
Jarrod Stackelroth: so that's the role that you hold currently. [00:04:00] And in that role,, you train and equip ministers, and obviously in that capacity, , you're supporting those who are ordained and commissioned in this part of the world.
Jarrod Stackelroth: You're also, A scholar who spent some time at Andrews University, which is probably for those, if you don't haven't heard of Andrews, it's probably the premier or one of the prestigious sort of Adventist institutions around the world. We hear about Andrews as the sort of. main seminary. And you were there for some time studying ecclesiology and how the church works
Darius Jankiewicz: and teaching
Jarrod Stackelroth: and so that and teaching.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Yeah, as part of your research and your teaching, you're investing in, , all the ministers that went through. That's correct. Andrew, so you do have a passion and you've also got obviously pastoral experience. You do have a passion for the church and ministers, those who are ordained, those who are coming up.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And I, I think that's important to, to remind ourselves of as we, [00:05:00] we start this conversation. , but let's get right into it, Darius, commonly when this conversation comes up, , What we did last week was set the scene, , look at ordination, but people want to jump straight to women's ordination.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It's the hot topic. It's the topic that people want to engage with, or perhaps don't want to engage with, some criticism that comes is that it's not the main mission or the core mission of the church. And perhaps we can unpack that a bit later. But where should we start when talking about women's ordination specifically this whole big topic what are some of the barriers that you know we can start addressing to Understand and explain where some of this comes from and get a handle on this topic.
Darius Jankiewicz: Sure. There is, , if you don't mind, I'll let you in a little bit of a Bible study, , for a few minutes. Just let you know that the basic three passages in the scripture that are used against the women [00:06:00] in ministry. And once again, we're using the word ordination carefully. One of the points I made last week that, , I'm not speaking against the structures as we have as the, at the church right now, but I would like to imbue the structure, , the things that we do with new meaning, especially the issue of Laying on of hands, , ordination as we call it, commissioning and so on.
Darius Jankiewicz: That, that's what I would try to do. So let me begin by talking about barriers as you requested. There are three basic passages that are used in the scripture against involvement in women in ministry. This is first Corinthians 11, three head of every man is Christ have of every man. Every woman is man and head of Christ is God.
Darius Jankiewicz: This is number one. Number two, it's, , 1 Timothy 2, 12. I do not permit a woman to have authority over man. And number three, Ephesians 5, 22. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. And you could add one more. from 1st Timothy 3, 2, that the bishop is supposed to be the husband of one wife.
Darius Jankiewicz: We can also talk about this a little bit. [00:07:00] And people often read into the text their own ideas, they come up with the specific definitions of those words that we've just seen, and they use this as an interpretive lens for the rest of the New Testament. Okay. I would like to suggest another method of interpretation.
Darius Jankiewicz: This is the hermeneutical method right now that we talk to Jesus. All right. We'll look at Jesus and use his words as an interpretive, hermeneutics or interpretation of the script of the rest of the scripture, rather than using single passage here and there, we use Jesus big principle that Jesus give us.
Darius Jankiewicz: So let me just take you to a passage that I've known from childhood, but I really begin to understand in new way as I dig deeply into this material. It's a very important story that founds its way into all three Gospels, the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and all those authors are repeating the story [00:08:00] in different ways, but I'll go to Mark, okay?
Darius Jankiewicz: So, so , let's go to Mark. The 10. Yes, you wanna?
Jarrod Stackelroth: And if you've got your Bible there, feel free to follow along if you're watching along with us. , it's always good to open the word of God. , so mark chapter 10.
Darius Jankiewicz: Yes, mark chapter 10, and I'd like to take you to verse 35.
Jarrod Stackelroth: 35. I've got my, and I'll just guide.
Jarrod Stackelroth: You've got my smart device here, so , I'll just look that up as you
Darius Jankiewicz: here. You've
Jarrod Stackelroth: got your real
Darius Jankiewicz: all. Okay. So here, this is what we find. Jesus is conversing with two disciples. Okay, verse 35. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. And then Jesus says, What do you want me to do for you? And they replied, Let us, let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.
Darius Jankiewicz: So let me pause. What are they asking for? What is it [00:09:00] that they want, you know, they imagining Jesus as a Roman Emperor type of person who is going to rule like a Roman Emperor rule or Herod or somebody, and they want earthly power, they want to sit on the right and left means that there will be co regents that will have the power to execute what Jesus tells.
Darius Jankiewicz: All right, and they want that power and Jesus, of course, probably looked at them. I can just imagine and just say, you don't know what you're asking for, he said, and can you drink the cup and so on and so on? And then in verse 41, it says, when the 10 heard about this, they became angry with James and John.
Darius Jankiewicz: And my question is, why do they become angry? You know, why? Why are they angry? I can only imagine that they would say, Oh, why didn't we think about it first? Why didn't we get this idea before those two upstarts got this idea? We should have got [00:10:00] a person angry.
Jarrod Stackelroth: They've skipped the line. They've jumped ahead and tried to try to say good books, you know, up the top, top of the tree, and
Darius Jankiewicz: they all have a specific understanding of who Jesus will be when he assumes the throne.
Darius Jankiewicz: All right, so I can just imagine Jesus being exasperated at this point. Luke places the story just before the Lord's Supper. Okay, so Jesus gets them together and he says incredibly important words. You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles Loaded over them. There's a special Greek word, katekouriontes, being hierarchically above somebody else.
Darius Jankiewicz: And the high officials exercise authority over them. Okay, so this is one thing. And then he says in verse 43, not so with you. And then I think as far as this issue is concerned, probably we have the most important words in the scripture. Just listen to this. [00:11:00] Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave.
Darius Jankiewicz: So, servant and slave. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as ransom for many. So, Jesus says here, Jesus uses two words, doulos and diakonos. Slave and slave. servant and he basically says to us this is the model for ministry this is the model for you because even I did not come to be like pagans have authority over rule over I came to serve and slave and Jesus does call himself a slave and Paul refers to Jesus as life in the Philippines chapter 2 so what Jesus does I've got a little illustration here okay a little little thing I've got this big knife here and imagine I, I've got this thing here.
Darius Jankiewicz: All right. Half of this is healthy and half of this is [00:12:00] rotten. The name for this thing is authority. Okay? So in this passage, when Jesus says not so with you, it's like he's taking a big knife and cuts through the concept of authority, and now you have. a rotten kind of authority and a healthy biblical Jesus kind of authority.
Darius Jankiewicz: Okay, two types of authority. Between the two is the concept that we know as Adventist that is known as great controversy. Okay, so this is a wrong understanding, the rotten, okay, it's dripping here and it's all rotten kind of authority here and this is a healthy kind of authority. Now, let me ask you a question.
Darius Jankiewicz: The whole discussion on women's ordination, all right, are we using, which kind of authority are we referring to when we're talking about women in ministry? Tell me, all right? Is it this [00:13:00] healthy kind of dulos, diaconos, servant slave kind of authority? Is it people who are ministering to us as servants, as slaves?
Darius Jankiewicz: Or are we talking about people who are ministering to us, are over us? Like this katechureontes, the Greek word, they are over us, they are telling us what to do, and , they are just exercising authority over us, you know? So, this is two different kinds of authority. It's almost as if Jesus puts the whole concept of authority on his head.
Darius Jankiewicz: He, disciples have one idea of authority. , and they think in terms of this kind of authority, they want to rule over, and Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, in my kingdom, if you want to fulfill the Great Commission, there's no ruling over people, there's no exercising authority over people. You have authority over the Great Commission, over the task, but not over the people.
Darius Jankiewicz: Okay? And Jesus teaches them. Completely different understanding of the authority. So, when I was teaching in the [00:14:00] past on this subject, I used this kind of glasses, all right? What you see here is written, Not so with you. Okay, this is the interpretive lens through which we're going to interpret difficult, , passages in the Scripture.
Darius Jankiewicz: And you know what? It's amazing how this actually answers many problems. So let's go to 1 Corinthians 11, 3. Head of every man is Christ, head of the woman is man, and head of Christ is God. Often we read this kind of pagan authority into this idea that headquarters, you know, and you think about headquarters, CEO has authority over employees and so on.
Darius Jankiewicz: And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no. Not so with you, for even I came to serve and slave for you. So you look at the passage and you say to yourself, okay, so what does the head mean? And the head obviously does not mean being over somebody. The head is to serve. to be in [00:15:00] servanthood role, okay, to the other people.
Darius Jankiewicz: You, you talk another passage, I do not permit woman to assume authority. And you again think, okay, not so with you. Okay. And then you think nobody should assume authority over another person. This is just not so with you. Okay, interesting thing about that passage is that the word authority here is Greek Athenteo and this word is used only once in the whole of New Testament.
Darius Jankiewicz: So in order to find out what it means you have to go outside of the New Testament and that word means this kind of oppressive authority. Oppressive authority, and of course, nobody should have that kind of authority over anybody. That's the principle, not so with you. If you think about the husband is the head of wife, as Christ is the head of the church, we once again read this into this, , this words that there's hierarchy here.
Darius Jankiewicz: Somebody tells somebody what to do. No, when you say put this on, [00:16:00] not so with you, you suddenly. have a completely different meaning. And you know what is very interesting is that throughout the New Testament, and I did the study on this, all the leaders of the New Testament called themselves slaves and servants and encouraged us to be slave and servants of one.
Darius Jankiewicz: Another. And in first Peter, , chapter five, verse one and two, Peter uses Jesus words. He actually uses the same word category on this, not to load over somebody, but the leaders are example to others of servanthood. Okay, so, , this kind of interpretive, , lens gives us a completely new meaning of difficult biblical passages.
Darius Jankiewicz: So I would like to ask you once again, when we talk about women's ordination, what kind of authority are we talking about? If ministry was about serving rather than being over somebody, would we argue about ordination at [00:17:00] all? Would this be on our agenda? So just a few thoughts here.
Maryellen Hacko: Can I just ask Darius?
Maryellen Hacko: So you're saying, are you suggesting then that the Adventist church or church institutions in general have that rotten authority? Built into them is like this, , distinction between the clergy and the lay, sorry, what is it? Anyway, the members and the pastors, , and that therefore pastors are somehow, because I imagine if I was a pastor listening to this and I thought that's what you were saying, I'd be like, but I am a servant, you know, I want to serve my congregation.
Maryellen Hacko: So how do we actually understand that currently as it sits?
Darius Jankiewicz: Well, well, I'm not saying that we as pastors or many pastors actually view themselves in this rotten kind of authority situation. We all view ourselves as servants. But when we begin to talk about women, suddenly we switch, we switch our interpretive lens.
Darius Jankiewicz: You [00:18:00] know, , and we see women should have no authority over men. Ministry is not about having authority over anybody. Ministry is just serving people to the best of our abilities. Ordination is blessing that church bestows upon us. Church recognizes the gifts in us, gifts of slavery and gifts of, , serving.
Darius Jankiewicz: Okay, and they say this person is going to be, has a call to ministry. And we as ministers serve people. All right, it's not about power, it's not about authority, it's not about above somebody. It should not be, , because as I pointed in a, last week's session, the early post apostolic Church modeled itself on the Roman Empire.
Darius Jankiewicz: As the Western Roman Empire was falling down, , and disappearing, the Church was taking more and more of the appearance of the Roman Empire, and that hierarchy arose, And the bishops and priests were above the people ruling over people. They were not serving [00:19:00] people. They were telling people what to do.
Darius Jankiewicz: They held salvation in their hands, and that's why we need this reformation and we still need that reformation. So,
Jarrod Stackelroth: and of course, Darius as Adventists, we've always believed that any oppressive system is represented in the Bible by Babylon. Exactly. It comes back to your great controversy, your great controversy idea, I guess, is that we should be looking to dismantle oppressive systems that are against God's kingdom, because not so with you.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Your kingdom, my kingdom, Jesus said, is not of this world., can you tie that into the great controversy theme a little bit more obviously for us? Because you mentioned it in passing, but I'm really interested to see how that looks and how.
Darius Jankiewicz: In heaven, Lucifer misunderstood, , the authority of God and who God is, and he wanted the power.
Darius Jankiewicz: All right? And that's how sin began, the misunderstanding of authority. This kind of authority [00:20:00] came into the heart of, , of Lucifer. , and you know what happened next. , and once again, Adam and Eve wanted the same kind of authority, that Satan was offering them. And our sinful nature actually craves this kind of authority, the wrong kind of authority.
Darius Jankiewicz: The great controversy happens in the heart of each one of us. You know, if we all look at the servanthood model of Jesus and what he did for us and how he modeled it for us and how he wants us to follow him and be like him, I don't think we will be arguing about those issues today. And I think it is part of the great controversy motive.
Darius Jankiewicz: , when you look at the great controversy that Ellen White wrote, the history of the church, you see how the church is usurping the power of God. And that's why reformation was needed. The church is taking over where God's supposed to be. The church is taking the place of Christ and actually there is a technical term in persona christi capitis in the [00:21:00] Catechism of the catholic church in the person of christ the head every minister functions In the place of christ the head replacing so to speak christ the head and within that system the medieval system and pre reformational system and until today Pastors do hold that kind of authority over people.
Darius Jankiewicz: This is not what God calls us to be, biblically speaking.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And of course, I guess God's character, we believe, through the investigative judgment and doctrines like that, that God's character is being put on display for the universe. So, God is demonstrating and through sending the sacrifice of his son through, his self giving love.
Jarrod Stackelroth: He is demonstrating a different way. A different way to live
Darius Jankiewicz: and it's God's character of love that is need to be demonstrated. That's correct.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Yeah. So I guess those who perhaps aren't [00:22:00] for whatever reason, , may interpret or may differ from you in some of these understandings may still be uncomfortable with this idea.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Do you mind if we unpack a little bit and I think it comes from Genesis and other places, , the old Testament priesthood. This idea of complementarianism or male headship as some people call it the idea that,, at Adam and Eve were created, Eve was created as a help meat or a different, you know, equal different roles to be fulfilled.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So this idea of, well, it's not about power. It's not about authority, but women should be doing different things than men should be doing. How does your hermeneutic apply to some of those arguments?
Darius Jankiewicz: You can, you can absolutely apply this not so with you all throughout the Scripture. Ellen White clearly says to us in Patriarchs and Prophets that Adam and Eve were created equal.
Darius Jankiewicz: , Genesis 1 and 2 do not speak about roles. Roles is actually a later [00:23:00] invention within the Church. Of course, we have to acknowledge that women and men are different, that we function differently within the family. We do not deny those differences. We function. I cannot be a mother and my wife cannot be a father.
Darius Jankiewicz: , I am a father. She's a mother. I'm male. She's a female. And within the family, we function in this kind of situation. But as far as ministry roles, okay, coming back to New Testament, we do not see the differentiation in the New Testament at all. We see that Paul had co workers and that the word is sunergo in Greek, co workers who were women and they are listed fighting with him, working with him, in the gospel work, , that worked with him.
Darius Jankiewicz: , I do not find when I study these issues in Genesis 1 and 2, we do not find anything except co regency. between Adam and Eve, that they were given the rulership, and it was actually the word [00:24:00] is abad, which in Hebrew, which means servanthood once again. Okay, they were supposed to serve and keep and guard the garden.
Darius Jankiewicz: And this is given to both of them at the same time. So we cannot really speak about the roles as we speak of today. This language did not exist until much later. What we see in the New Testament Okay. Okay. , so we've got this system of priesthood. Okay. Patriarchy and priesthood in the Old Testament.
Darius Jankiewicz: And that system is broken down by Christ's death. As we talked last week, that the priestly system, , based on patriarchy is just, Sanctuary Temple is rendered in two, , and the church stitched it together in the third century, and suddenly we have Levitical priesthood once again, and only men can fulfill this role.
Darius Jankiewicz: And as a matter of fact, it is the Catholic Church who introduces into Christianity the idea of male headship [00:25:00] in the church. So this was introduced once again between 3rd and 4th century, and it is, , so called in history of the church, it's called an iconic argument. And when priest begins to replace Christ, , Christ and function as Christ, so to speak, on earth, then priest functions as the head.
Darius Jankiewicz: Of the church. Okay. This is a teaching from catechism right now So I already said this in persona christi capitis in the person of christ the head It's a replacement of christ who is the only head of the church. There's no other heads replacement of christ and put the headship male headship into the church.
Darius Jankiewicz: And because Christ was male, therefore priest has to be male. It's called iconic argument. And therefore the ministry of women were phased out from second third century and we've got documentation that women functions before those [00:26:00] issues came into the church. They function as priests or as pastors by the fourth century and fifth century this practice dies down by a specific decree of councils and popes who say no more women elders in the church we do not need this and catholic church introduces the male headship idea that runs through the history up until today and it's picked up within protestantism as well it is not a biblical idea of male headship in the church yes there's male headship in the home but once again When you talk about male headship in the home, it's not so with your principle, but there's no headship in the Church, because Christ is the only head of the Church.
Darius Jankiewicz: In Catholic Church, Christ was replaced by priestly ministry. We do not do this, since the ripping apart of the temples, curtain, we have a completely different system and early Christianity, apostolic Christianity was that kind of a Christianity. [00:27:00] And then people fell back into following the modes of the world.
Darius Jankiewicz: And we still are to some extent.
Maryellen Hacko: Darius, I've got to take my hat off to you because the, this is just absolutely. You've broken down the whole issue, this wedge issue in the worldwide church, right? In pretty much three principles that we've discussed over the past two presentations.
Maryellen Hacko: The first is that ordination is not actually a biblical concept, or at least how we've defined it is not biblical. The second is that servanthood, or like I guess leadership, is actually servanthood, is that concept we've already talked about. And then there's this headship idea, which we've got completely wrong.
Maryellen Hacko: And most of these issues also stem from the Catholic tradition, their second and third centuries and all that. That's amazing. I, I think if everybody could understand that this wouldn't be an issue, as you've said. So,, I'm sure you've spoken to people that are anti women's ordination, people in leadership, and that sort of thing.
Maryellen Hacko: Why [00:28:00] is this still an issue? These seem like very difficult arguments to disagree with. , why is this still an issue and what can we do to make it not an issue? Like what actually practically needs to happen?
Darius Jankiewicz: Yeah, it is an issue because of our human nature, , and it is also an issue I suppose because we As Adventists, we want to be faithful to the Scripture, and some, for some of us, faithfulness is what we see.
Darius Jankiewicz: We don't always, I've learned those things, by careful studying of the Scripture, and we need to give each other time , to read and to learn from the Scripture what it really means to be a Christian. You know within Christianity, there's no ranks. And this is what I wanted to say. I think that to break out those barriers, we need to focus, rather than focusing on gender, we need to focus on spiritual gifting.
Darius Jankiewicz: , in the New Testament, the primary image of the Church, there are many images of the Church in the New Testament, but the [00:29:00] primary image of the Church is the body of Christ. , and we're all familiar with this image. When you look into what, how Paul defines it and how Paul works with it, it's all about spiritual gifting.
Darius Jankiewicz: We are all gifted in other ways. We all have different gifts. We all can, contribute into the church with variety of gifting. So let me just give you an example. One of the foundational passages is in Romans 12. And I think we need to make this. spiritual gifting, a foundational framework, rather than foreign ideas that come into the Scripture through our thinking and through culture.
Darius Jankiewicz: Okay, so Romans chapter 12. I would like to take you to a very interesting passage here that is just fascinating to me, okay? And we do not always see it. So the passage begins with Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.
Darius Jankiewicz: This passage is given to Everyone to the whole church, right? Men and women. Would you agree with this? [00:30:00] Okay, it's men and women. And then it does say
Jarrod Stackelroth: brothers.
Darius Jankiewicz: That's it. It says brothers in Greek. In Greek, the word he's other for you. Okay, so so would that mean if that word, if we take it as it is brothers, would that mean that women should not offer their bodies as living sacrifices?
Jarrod Stackelroth: I don't think anyone would argue that.
Darius Jankiewicz: That's it would be nonsensical. Okay, so let me hold that thought and let me go to verse 4. Just as each one of us has one body with many members, these members do not all have the same function. When he says each one of us, is it only men or women and men? Now, obviously, he talks to the whole church, right?
Darius Jankiewicz: So, let's read further in verse 6. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. We have different gifts. Then, if man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. And notice that he's using the [00:31:00] word men's here in a generic kind of way. We decided that the whole passage is directed to the whole church, both men and women.
Darius Jankiewicz: So, if it is serving, let him serve. If it is teaching, let him teach. All right, so obviously this passage is directed to the whole church. We can teach. If it is encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him contribute generously. And now it's super interesting here, because the next The next part says, if it is leadership, let him govern diligently.
Darius Jankiewicz: And the word is proestotos. This is standing in front of people and being a leader. This is the word of leadership. So, leadership in the church is based on spiritual gifting. Okay, and then we can go to other passages in the New Testament when this word comes up, proestotos, and we will find out that this, for example, is applied to Phoebe.
Darius Jankiewicz: who is a woman, who is a deacon, okay, , in Romans 16, 2, [00:32:00] she's called prostatis, is the same word as prostatis except it's a verb noun combination here. So you see here that leadership, and this is leadership, how do we know that this leadership as far as bishops are concerned is because in 1 Timothy 5, 17, we find those words, let them direct, bishops who direct, the word, the affairs of the church.
Darius Jankiewicz: And the word direct is the same word. as the word leadership here in Romans chapter 12 and verse 8. So the leadership in the church is based on gifting. So if I have a gift of leadership, the church sees that, and yes, you can function in the leadership area. If anybody has a gift of leadership, We as a church, the only role for us is to recognize them, give and bless people.
Darius Jankiewicz: And if they have gift of ministry, then we bless them through laying on of hands. , so you see, we need to start thinking more in terms of body of, I call, I like to call it body of Christ ecclesiology. [00:33:00] If we really understand that. Ministry in the church is based on spiritual gifting. If, and we understand that leadership is serving people, slavery for the people.
Darius Jankiewicz: So we could say ordination is ordination to slavery. Oh, that sounds awful. , but that's the biblical language. You know, it's , not ordination to ruling over people. It's ordination to slavery. Who wants that? , why are we fighting about this, you know? , so if, I think that if we embrace body of Christ ecclesiology, ecclesiology is doctrine of the church.
Darius Jankiewicz: If we embrace that concept and apply it to different parts of the Scripture, to difficult passages, we'll find out that all of our problems are being solved one by one.
Maryellen Hacko: Yeah, well, that's a That's a great explanation. Great answer to my question. , we just got a couple of comments here, which I might just read out on the screen if that's okay for we continue.
Maryellen Hacko: Michael Chapman says women's ordination is still an issue because it's [00:34:00] still a significant divide over what the Bible actually is and how it must be interpreted and applied. The conflict is between those who champion a plain reading of scripture and those who champion a plain reading of scripture in light of good exegesis.
Maryellen Hacko: I think that's sort
Darius Jankiewicz: of You know, there's a danger with, about what we call the plain reading of the scripture. Obviously, plain reading of the scripture is not always helpful because the disciples had the plain reading of the scripture and they did not get it. Okay, so, for example, on the way to Emmaus, we find two disciples discussing the two issues, discussing the issues that happened, actually, and they are joined by a stranger.
Darius Jankiewicz: And what does the stranger do for them? He does hermeneuo. He explains. Okay, so we need an explanation. Plain reading of the scripture, listen carefully, plain reading of the scripture, [00:35:00] states theologians to embrace slavery. Okay, they read this slave, obey your masters. They read the information that Abraham had slaves.
Darius Jankiewicz: God never condemned slavery throughout the scripture. Paul speaks about slavery. Peter speaks about slaves. Obey your masters. Slavery is okay. And they build the entire theology of slavery on the basis of Isolated passages of the scripture without looking at the bigger principles. Okay, and the whole abolitionist movement base itself , on Galatians 3.
Darius Jankiewicz: 28. There's no Jew or Gentile. There's no free or slave. There's no man. Or women, men or women, okay? We're all one in Jesus Christ. So abolitionism, , the movement, the Christian abolitionists used the big principles of the Scripture, like, say, body of Christ ecclesiology, and they said slavery does not fit into that.
Darius Jankiewicz: Whereas plain reading in the Scripture, [00:36:00] of the Scripture, can actually lead us , into uh, embracing of slavery like this. So we need to be wise when we read the scripture. Yes, scripture is open to everyone. When we open the Bible, the Holy Spirit, if we ask for the Holy Spirit to read, to illumine us is a technical word, theological word.
Darius Jankiewicz: We pray, we open, but we need to recognize one thing. Like, I think I touched on this last week, that we all, this is important, we all read the scripture with glasses. Okay. So, for example, , we have certain cultural ideas of us understanding certain words in the Bible. And we think that those words mean what we think they mean because this is our growing up.
Darius Jankiewicz: For example, in English, we have one word for love. In Greek, we have three. It's eros, phileo, and agape. And all those three words are translated by one word, love. And they mean different things. [00:37:00] You know, and it's good to actually ask God when we open the Bible to ask that God will purify our presuppositions, that He will cleanse our glasses, that when we put those, we have to have certain presuppositions because we would not be able to understand the Scripture otherwise, that we have to have an agreement that certain words mean certain things.
Darius Jankiewicz: But very often we read into those words. , and we have to be careful when that happens, and plain, so to speak, reading, reading of the Scriptures. Sometimes leaders, the situation is like reading the Bible with dirty glasses. , you guess that this is what the Bible means, this is what Paul means, but actually Paul doesn't mean that.
Darius Jankiewicz: And that's why we have community together as a church. We read the Bible together and That's why we need community. So there you go a little bit about hermeneutics
Maryellen Hacko: George you have a question. We've got a few more comments [00:38:00] here, but
Jarrod Stackelroth: we'll do I'll just I'll just quickly throw it in so there's always seemed to be a Divide in the Adventist Church and this is going more into the hermeneutics and we don't have to cover it in full but I guess some people would argue that , Do we need Greek to understand?
Jarrod Stackelroth: Do we need to study those cultural contexts? And, but why can't just I sit down with my Bible or my King James Bible , and do that? And you've sort of covered that with, getting the Holy Spirit to interpret it. , I guess people find that hard. I think people find it hard to. to read those interpretations.
Darius Jankiewicz: Look, Gerard, God gave us the Scripture. Okay? Through the writings of the Apostles and Prophets before God gave us the Scripture. The story of salvation is simple. All you need is John 3. 16. Okay? Christ loved us. God loved us somewhere that he sent his only son and so on, , and we can read the, plain truths of the scripture.
Darius Jankiewicz: They open to everybody. Up [00:39:00] until the 16th century, the church actually held the scripture in its hands and in some way, the Catholic Church still does not allow any other interpretations except the interpretation of the magistery of the church, which is bishops. And, and the Pope, and this, the only valid interpretation is their interpretation.
Darius Jankiewicz: So until 16th century, scripture was all in Latin for basic people in Europe, and the priests interpreted the scripture, and people had to believe, , what is, what priest was telling them. And then Luther comes and says, no, no, no, I need to translate. And before him, people were translating into English and Tyndale and so on.
Darius Jankiewicz: And Luther wants Bible in a vernacular, which is German. And he wants people to read the Bible for themselves. Okay. The basic truths of salvation we can get from the Bible. There's, not a question about it. You read the Bible, you will find God of love. who loves us. He sends his son, who is God himself, who dies for us on the cross, gives his life for us.
Darius Jankiewicz: , I mean , that amazing passage, from [00:40:00] Philippians chapter two, that Christ who was, I need to read it because , this is such a Passionate thing for me. Paul says here your attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ, you know He's telling this to Christians who still have bits of pieces of this kind of understanding Your attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ who being very nature God did not consider equality We've got something to be grasped but made himself nothing.
Darius Jankiewicz: The word is zero. Nothing Okay, taking the very nature of a servant or the word actually slave dulos So Jesus took the nature of a slave , and , he says here, Paul, your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ. So here's the distinction that I show you between two different kinds of authority.
Darius Jankiewicz: We can get that from the scripture, from the reading of the scripture. But when we encounter difficult issues, Like things that we argue about. , , like things about, , should women be allowed to say [00:41:00] anything in church. Because Paul does say women shall be silent. It's shameful for women in 1 Corinthians 14 to speak in the church.
Darius Jankiewicz: What does it mean? All right, I met church members who actually say for women to open her mouth in church during worship service is sin. I had church members like this. so what does that mean? You see, part of the problem is that we are separated from Paul by just about almost 2, 000 years,
Darius Jankiewicz: and it is like writing a letter in the 16th century or something , and in the 21st century trying to understand the situation of the 16th century and thinking, what? Those words mean and some words mean different things, , and we're trying to find out what was the intention of the author, what was happening within his local church or local situation so that we can understand.
Darius Jankiewicz: Sometimes we have the same problem with Ellen White. We are separated by a hundred years, a bit more hundred years, but some words that she uses are used differently today. And this is especially [00:42:00] a problem with translations of Ellen White. I know this because, I've read translations into Polish of Sepsu Christ that were not quite correct.
Darius Jankiewicz: So , we look at Paul and this is 2, 000 years. So this is important to know the context, the wider context. , what was the situational thing in the churches at the moment? Why is Paul saying this? Is there another reason? Why he's and so on and Greek is very helpful in this I'm not a specialist in Greek But I know know enough to to get myself into trouble, I guess
Maryellen Hacko: I feel like we could go into a whole nother conversation about , the Bible being the inspired word of God and
Darius Jankiewicz: Bible is absolutely inspired word of God
Maryellen Hacko: Yes, , but look we might just go back to the questions Um, so Admiral and Admiral and cube and Peter Mishenko both have a lot of comments here But maybe we'll just answer them sort of together.
Maryellen Hacko: I think they kind of link in quite well Admiral asks The ordination debate is now more [00:43:00] political than anything. We use administrative policy tools to address a theological issue at a global level. How or where can a local church start in this conversation? I appreciate the body of Christ ecclesiology angle.
Maryellen Hacko: And later on, he also says, , the lay person becomes lost in this debate. You know, local church layperson, like, what can we do? , and then Peter also asked. Sort of on, on a similar vein, what diaries' sharing makes so much sense. I would love to know whether he shared his research and understanding of other leaves at the GC and what their reception was.
Maryellen Hacko: How does he feel we can move towards a quality of opportunity within the church and what we can do, if anything, to help this to occur. And then later on he even suggests,, we should get all members to sign petitions. And I love that . I love the initiative, but , what do you have to say? ?
Darius Jankiewicz: Yeah.
Darius Jankiewicz: Well, to speak about misunderstandings, , like I said, we , all bring our own glasses into reading of the Bible. And, and this is a problem. This is an issue. I think , that, , like I mentioned last week, , one thing that we can do as a church is [00:44:00] really, teach our church membership.
Darius Jankiewicz: What is the church?? Church is the body of Christ. Church is not primarily an institution or organization. , in Catholic Church, the church is primarily an organization. The Catholic Church would not exist without ordination, without ordained clergy, that Catholic Church would collapse.
Darius Jankiewicz: , for example, I can say this drastic example. If all the bishops, and there's about 2, 500 of them in Catholic Church, died suddenly of some pandemic or whatever, there'll be no church. There's just no, no transmission of God's grace to regular people. It is , the church that translates those things.
Darius Jankiewicz: We have a different understanding of the church, completely different understanding of the church. The Reformation began this, , and introduced, Luther introduced the concept of priesthood of all believers. It's a phenomenal concept. I'm preparing a series of three lectures on this that I'll be presenting to pastors, what it really means, this Priesthood of All Believers.
Darius Jankiewicz: This was in the New Testament, then it was [00:45:00] clouded by various issues, and we are called to recreate this once again, this whole conception of Priesthood of All Believers. It's completely opposite what we've traditionally had, but we still tie. ourselves to tradition in some ways. , so we imagine the church in a traditional way.
Darius Jankiewicz: We imagine the church with offices. By the way, the word office is not in the Bible. We are not in the New Testament. The officio is a Latin word that does not appear in the Bible. , if anybody desires the office of bishop, there's no word office there. We've got a lot of foreign things in our theology.
Darius Jankiewicz: And I think we as a church need to do a better job seeing what is biblical, what is unbiblical in our theology. And as much as we can stick to principles that we find in the Bible, we cannot return to the original early church situation because we live in a different cultural situation [00:46:00] altogether. This will be impossible, but we can adapt the principles that we find in the scripture in the New Testament to our situation today.
Darius Jankiewicz: So we can, for example, , somebody said in that question, we, it is issue of policy. It's unfortunate to some extent if issue of money, tax, taxes, and everything that this ordination is tied up with government regulation. And that breaks my heart to some extent that it's simple blessing of the church. now becomes a political issue, becomes a, , desired issue, becomes a reward, a promotion kind of issue.
Darius Jankiewicz: That's not what I find in the Bible. I mean, how does this fit in with the whole thing that taking the very nature of a slave How, how does this fit into this? I, I just can't make sense out of this, you know? , and, and we are called that our attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ. So, yeah, I, I'm trying to figure this out myself as well, you know.
Jarrod Stackelroth: , you [00:47:00] said to us, Darius, I think it was in a conversation that we had before going on that, this idea, or it might have been last week has changed your life, the study that you've done in this space and it's made you a better person understanding, , that the servanthood and , the, that nature of things, a lot of people argue, these are the three sort of, I think there's three, main, opinions that a lot of people bring up now, many say that this is the ordained sort of voice of God, the GC in session, the worldwide church gathered is the highest, authority to use that word.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And they voted no three times to women's ordination. So it should be stopped talking about it. We should be distracted. Other people try and shut down the conversation by saying we should focus on God's mission. God's mission is to spread the great commission or the everlasting gospel of the three angels messages.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And so we shouldn't talk about Politics. , and it's it's a side [00:48:00] issue. It's distracting us from that mission. There's sort of to that argument.
Darius Jankiewicz: You see, not using our gifts for those people who have gifts that distracts us from the mission big time. If we all used our gifts that God gives us, then we will not be distracted.
Darius Jankiewicz: We are distracted because as a church, we argue who has the gift and who doesn't have a gift. rather than doing God's work. That's, I absolutely agree on this. On the issue of General Conference, yes, General Conference is the authority among us, but General Conference is not an infallible authority.
Darius Jankiewicz: Infallibility rests within the, papacy and the bishops, magisterium of the Catholic Church. They actually define infallibility when the Pope actually says, No, it's no. Okay, but in the history of Adventist Church, the General Conference changed its mind several times on various issues as new understanding came into, as people understood the Scripture better, as they understood [00:49:00] themselves better, the issues were changed.
Darius Jankiewicz: And sometimes Ellen White sided with the General Conference and sometimes she didn't. The sometimes she said that general conference is not correct. Sometimes she upheld the authority of general conference, so I don't think we should use the votes and I'll come back to the votes in a moment as the vote.
Darius Jankiewicz: No, that's it. No more discussion. You know, as a parent, just I'm a parent, you know, and sometimes I say no to my kids and then I reconsider, , We're in the process of deciding whether we should have a dog. My first reaction was, no, and I'm an infallible authority in my house. And I said, no, I have, we already have a cat with it.
Darius Jankiewicz: And over the last three days, I basically had been reconsidering the idea, , we function as a church. We discuss, we continue discussion. We bring new truths. In fact, the preamble, preamble of the 28 fundamentals forbids. infallibility of the General Conference. Okay, it's clearly stated the [00:50:00] preamble is more important than the 20th fundamentals, actually, because it's talking about further discovery under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Darius Jankiewicz: So we cannot stop talking. That's one thing. Another thing you touched on is the discussion that the GC voted three times. No, it actually didn't. The GC has never once voted against women's ordination on biblical grounds. Let me make this clear. Not once G. C. voted against women's ordination on biblical grounds.
Darius Jankiewicz: It was voted on cultural grounds, not yet kind of grounds. We're not ready as a church yet. It's not the time for us to do that yet. When we're ready, we might. It's not time yet. So it was not There's no no against women's ordination. There's often a misunderstanding about the latest vote. , some people take it that this is a vote no against women's ordination.
Darius Jankiewicz: Once again, this was not a vote against [00:51:00] women's ordination. It was a vote against divisions going their own way on women's ordinations. This is very clear. It can be checked what the motion, , was. And often people would like this to be a vote against women's ordination, but it was not. So the General Conference has never voted against women's ordination on biblical grounds.
Darius Jankiewicz: And let me add one more thing. We've got women elders in our church. It was, , voted by annual council, , 40 years ago. And it was Acknowledged by the general conference through the successive church manuals where the language was adjusted, , for, to allow for women elders. General conference had many opportunities to, , stop the idea of women elders and in my opinion, eldership is very much, ministerial work as well in the church.
Darius Jankiewicz: One is professional for pastors and voluntary for elders and that this has not happened. So the church, the world church has never voted against women's ordination on biblical [00:52:00] grounds.
Jarrod Stackelroth: I mean, they often ordain elders. They put hands, they lay hands. That's part of the ceremony or the ritual of ordaining the elders.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And we do have, as you say, that's been part of our church for 40 years. Did you say 40 years?
Darius Jankiewicz: Yes. Yes. About 40, 40 years. The annual council, I think it was 75 annual council voted to allow women. In the church, and then it was ratified by subsequent general conferences.
Darius Jankiewicz: So yeah, so, so we as a church never voted against women's ordination as such on biblical grounds. This needs to be clear because there's lots of misunderstanding out there. And certainly. Certainly on the basis of 28 fundamentals and preamble we can continue discussing this issue because God is working through us.
Darius Jankiewicz: We Adventists are champions of present truth, right? , that's our ethos. , and if we say it's been voted three times, no, and we continue talking, we're not present. [00:53:00] truth people anymore, so that's why we cannot close the discussion. If we got, if we had a pope in our church, he could issue the encyclical and there'll be it, but we don't do that.
Darius Jankiewicz: Wow.
Maryellen Hacko: Yeah, look, Joe, you go, Joe. I think
Jarrod Stackelroth: I was just going to say, Mary Ellen, , I saw Valerie's comment there. I don't know if you're going to throw to that. It's quite a, , insightful one, if you can put it on the screen for us. With, , how do we have constructive discussions around women's ordination when so much resistance is rigid in cultural interpretations of the role of men and women in and out of the church?
Jarrod Stackelroth: I think that's a good practical, you know, where do we go from here? What can we do? And it sort of ties into Admiral's comment about , what can we do at a local church level, that local roots? How do we have these conversations?
Darius Jankiewicz: You know, I think that, we need to learn to take emotion out of this discussion.
We become very [00:54:00] emotive when we talk about this, if we are able to sit, , across each other and talk normally , and talk about the issues and talk through the issues and talk about this whole body of Christ ecclesiology, concept that I just brought earlier, I think that would help.
I, I find it, , I don't know how we're going to discuss this. There's so much emotion around the vaccinations right now, , it's like unbelievable. We almost stopped talking about ordination. Now we talk about vaccination, and, , I think that Loving one another, educating, helping, understanding what has not been done at the GC.
And that broke my heart. The last GC, I was there in 2015 in San Antonio. What broke my heart is that we did not follow the process of Acts 15. In Acts 15, we find that there's explanation about Gentiles, that there's the whole story about the, Peter is telling the [00:55:00] story about the Holy Spirit coming upon Gentiles , and the, and he's telling of what happened.
We did not do this at the GC. We did not actually bring this, we did not investigate whether it is the Holy Spirit that motivates women who receive the call from God, and discover how is their ministry going. Is their ministry fruitful? Is it successful? We didn't do that. And I think that really was sad for me at that stage.
So I think that we need to, pray. And I need to pray and we all need to pray as a church that God will work with us, that God will open our eyes, that God will, and you know what, maybe God will lead us through some revelation type of thing that maybe we should not have women in ministry, I don't know, but on the basis of the experience, my faith, reading of the scripture, of my years of study of the scripture, understanding the concepts, like I just showed you, this, these two concepts of this kind of [00:56:00] authority here, , I arrived at the conclusion, I arrived that if we say to some people, you have a gift and you don't have a gift, you can't perform, you can't function within your own gifting area, we engage in quenching of the Holy Spirit and Bible is telling us, Poulter, do not quench The Holy Spirit.
And when we quench the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to engage in a mission. There's just not a chance that we'll be able to fulfill the great commission of Christ for us. We need the Holy Spirit and we need the time of love and discussion to accomplish that.
Maryellen Hacko: Amen, we need the Holy Spirit. That's a point that often comes up in these Discussions are desperate need for more of the Holy Spirit. Definitely look, we're pretty much out of time. , but before we go, , I just wanted to give some encouragement to you, Darius. Peter says, I love what Darius is saying and with the courage and conviction that he's saying it without fear or favor, very factual, clear, and unbiased. Thank you. Completely agree. [00:57:00] And, Jill on YouTube says that she really enjoyed last week's presentation.
Maryellen Hacko: And, thank you for sharing the results of your decades of research in a conversational way, much better than reading a doctoral thesis.
Darius Jankiewicz: There is much more, you know, there's much more that I was able, we literally scratched the surface on, on this topic, so. There's far more than I could share.
Maryellen Hacko: We might end there today. , thank you again so much for joining us and for all your wisdom.