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3 Reasons Why Believers Need the Guidance of Bible Scholars
In an authentic German pub a few years ago, I met John. We were fellow passengers traveling across Germany on a riverboat cruise. Over schnitzel and sauerkraut, I learned that John, a retired businessman, was on a quest to find the source of his prosperous life. He told me that, unlike others he knew, he had enjoyed incredible financial success, good health, and had a family he loved and who loved him. Listening to his story, I realized that John and I were having a divine appointment. I could almost hear his heart crying out to know the Truth. In our ensuing conversation, I shared a bit about the Way…
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A Historical Review: Black Women Who Won the Battle to Preach
Any review of women’s religious history is incomplete “without an adequate grasp of the groundbreaking work” of Black preaching women.[1] Historian Bettye Collier-Thomas in her book Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1950–1979, explains that during the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, “in most black religious traditions, women won the battle to preach.”[2]
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I Believed the Lie
Not many years ago, I realized I’d internalized a lie. A lie that wreaks havoc. One that many others have believed too. I believed the lie that the Divine One values his sons more highly than his daughters—that, by design, woman is inferior to man. The Lie of Women’s Inferiority In a human sense, this lie plays out by characterizing men as deserving of life’s focus and spotlight, with women functioning as accessories. In a reverse example, Ken tells Barbie in the movie Barbie, “I don’t know who I am without you… There’s no just Ken. That’s why I was created. I only exist within the warmth of your gaze.”…
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Historic Siblings Who Partnered in Ministry
During my flight to Italy for a seminary summer course, I looked again at a photocopy of an ancient mosaic of four women. In my pre-course research on the history of women in ministry, I happened upon this photograph of a ninth-century mosaic adorning a wall of an ancient basilica (church). While in Rome, I hoped to find the Basilica of Santa Prassede and to learn these women’s stories, two of whom were siblings who partnered in ministry. A God-Wink One steamy afternoon while the rest of our group toured the Colosseum in Rome, my professor Sandra Glahn joined me to search for the Basilica of Santa Prassede. Though Rome’s…
