“Provoking Christian Insights” series

Part 8

“He Frees”

With Independence Day coming up, my thoughts turn to freedom and the most perfect document of freedom ever written by men, The Declaration of Independence.” I began to search myself for the words of “all men being created equal.” Did I really believe that? What was I taught, and what was I inferred to believe by the actions of others? Are all men created equal? How about men and women?

Certainly in Jesus time men and women weren’t equal or even created that way in the Arab world. The Apostle Paul gave us the problem verse, “As for me, women should not teach men.” What is your thought when you see a woman standing in the pulpit or conducting a funeral service? Do you look for the woman’s covering of a man in the room? Does your mind turn off? Or, do you politely accept the information that she provides?

Only until the last century were women given equal rights in even America. And in the denomination of my upbringing, women preachers were virtually unheard of …until one day, about a generation ago, they announced our new Area Minister … it was a woman!

Today the so-called, “Glass Ceiling” is being broken by very able women in the workplace. And, as we look back we see many wonderful and powerful women in the workplace and in ministry. I just gave my head a check-up from the neck-up to get rid of stinking thinking put there by tradition. God has freed me to see that freedom is for all of us. The problem verses in the Bible that speak against women were part of the tradition of that time.

Jesus said, “The truth shall make you free.” Yet many of us are held captive as Christians because someone thought that they had to take away some of our “freedoms” to keep us straight. Some denominations tell those who take membership that they have to vote a certain way. They must never touch anything containing alcohol, and a number of other like activities that could lead the saved person to sin. Many Christians quietly disregard those rules and still feel like they are Christians although they are actually breaking their vow to the church.

I have been one who held that women shouldn’t teach men until I realized that some of my best teaching came from women. A friend of mine liked his male teachers better than the females. But, he didn’t argue with my newly found acceptance of females in Spirit appointed roles.

If you really take a long look at it, Jesus freed women into roles equal with men in many areas. And, the prophet Joel foretold (Joel 2:28), “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind, your sons and your daughters will prophesy.”  When the Apostle Peter received the gift of the Holy Spirit, this verse was included in his first sermon.

So guess what? The first sermon preached held that women were equal to men to preach the gospel in the last days, and it was told in the Old Testament. Even those who deny the New Testament cannot deny it!

Yes, man is still the head of the wife, but I wouldn’t say that too loudly in this household. Early on the wife is described as the “help-meet,” but not the type of the first TV shows of the 1950’s. The Bible’s four problem verses, such as 1 Timothy 2:12, and 1 Corinthians 14:34, would have and did cause us to believe that women were not free to be equals of men in church. This is where fundamentalists often err on the side of the printed word.

What about Galatians 3:28 where it says, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek…male or female?” Here we find the Apostle Paul saying that men and women are equal in the church and can be used by the Spirit in any position.

I had an acquaintance, Raleigh Harris, who played the huge Indianapolis church organ for The Kathryn Kuhlman Crusade and daily radio series. He told me of how, just like on the Day of Pentecost, this powerful woman of God was used by her Gifts to display God’s Presence before hundreds and thousands of people, who to this day remember her gentle voice and calling.

I heard Kuhlman on the radio but didn’t think a lot of it at the time. I guess I thought she was an anomaly in the preaching business. Raleigh told me differently. She didn’t leave her pulpit often, yet many people out in the audience were healed, because this Gifted woman instilled faith in the Master’s hand.

A group of ladies had me take them to Cleveland to hear Joyce Meyer.  Christ’s calling is not on marital status or sex. Joyce Meyer’s ministry has had a huge affect upon women and men. Her gift is definitely in teaching.

FREED FROM THE SLAVERY OF SIN

John 8:36:”Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

It all starts here. “If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed,” John 8:31. Freedom has its conditions. We must abide in His teaching. Those who continue to live by the TRUTH are made FREE from the bondage of sin.

A lot of times, when we think of Freedom, we think of the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves in America. That was a time of early mechanization and killing was easy to do. Thousands upon thousands were killed while praying to the same God because they were Christians, yet fighting each other. My grandmother had me take her up to the Devil’s Den near Gettysburg, where she strongly wept over all the boys that were killed there.

One of the strongest reasons that we live in a “free country” is that our founding fathers were mostly Christians who believed seriously that being “Christian” was the only way we would stay free. When we look around our country today we see sin everywhere, and we wonder what is going to happen to our precious God given freedom. We must continue to press on to the goal of more perfect freedom in Christ and under God.

Sometimes believers carry with them an unnecessary burden of guilt over past sins and failures. Even though these sins have been confessed, they have difficulty believing God has truly forgiven and cleansed them. But, time and again, the Bible guarantees us that all confessed sin is instantly and eternally forgiven (Ps. 32:5, 103:12; Is. 38:17). We are free indeed.

FREE

Job 3:19 … and the servant is free.

Is. 58:6 … let the oppressed go free.

John 8:36 …and if the Son makes you free.

Rom. 6:18 … and having been set free.

Rom. 8:12 …Jesus has made me free.

1 Co. 9:1 … Am I not free?

Gal. 3:28 … is neither slave nor free.

Gal. 4:26 … Jerusalem above is free.

Gal. 5:1 … Christ has made us free.

Eph. 6:8 … he is slave or free.

Rev. 13:6 … poor, free and slave.

INSPIRATON: “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Do not again submit to the yoke of slavery,” Galatians 5:1 NASB.

Write: croneis@earthlink.net