Four Tips On How To Accept Correction

Raise your hand if you like to receive correction? Just what I suspected — none of us.

Whether it is in marriage, the workplace, or at church, receiving correction is tough. Yet it is an inescapable fact that correction is a HUGE tool for growth, transformation, and personal development. People who constantly reject correction are stunted.

How we respond to correction is an indicator of our wisdom. Yes, it indicates our wisdom. We cannot avoid that reality if we read the Bible.

Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still. — Proverbs 9:8-9

The ear that hears the rebukes of life of will abide among the wise. — Proverbs 15:31

Wise people receive correction. And Proverbs connects wisdom with humility.

But with the humble is wisdom. — Proverbs 11:2b

Being foolish and proud will prevent us from receiving correction.

The Bible contains another implication for those who lead people.

Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. — Proverbs 10:17

We will literally lead others astray if we reject correction. Think about that for a minute. So, if I am un-teachable and resist correction it could impact my children, co-workers, the community in which I live, and my church. Those are big implications.

Here’s how correction goes down: A flawed person points out our flaw. It could be our mate, co-worker, or co-teacher in the Bible study we lead. It could be random church member, someone in our community or a dear, dear friend.

Could God use a less-than-perfect tool in His hand to shed light on the flaws of people who are prone to blind spots?

Apparently so.

1 Corinthians 4:14-21

I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.  Therefore I urge you, imitate me.  For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.

Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.  But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.  What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

Exodus 18:13-17

 And so it was, on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening. So when Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, “What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit, and all the people stand before you from morning until evening?”

 And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God.  When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another; and I make known the statutes of God and His laws.”

So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing that you do is not good.”

Why is it hard to receive correction?

• It is rarely delivered in a completely pleasing manner or context.
• The person who delivered it is flawed. Maybe even more flawed than we are.
• We love ourselves. (A lot)
• We are self-deceived about our true condition.

Disclaimer — Very rarely if ever, actually, is this my first, instinctual response: “Thank you very much. I needed that.” (Think angry lioness attacking a prey.)

So how does a leader respond to correction?

1. With a grace-filled reaction. We must lead our heart and not follow it in this moment. Pause, take a deep breath and fight for a gracious response, even if every fiber of your being is saying the exact opposite.
2. Resist being defensive. Being argumentative at this point is not wise. Perhaps there are some facts to settle but press pause on that interchange. Your heart will lie to you until God overrides it with His loving truth about your condition.
3. Lean in and learn. Not every correction is completely true but nearly all have a kernel of truth. Sifting the words back to God for His confirmation is key. Correction will sting but it is often a tool used in the hand of God. Wise people allow correction to grow them and change them.  This is very true in the workplace as well.
4. Lead even in correction. We cannot lead others to places we have not gone. Receiving correction with wisdom and humility is a powerful example at home or at church.

Just as we correct our children to make them better people, God does the same for us.

How do you typically respond to correction? What tips for receiving correction would you add?

Kathy Litton lives in Mobile, AL with her husband Ed Litton, Pastor of FBC North Mobile. Both lost former spouses in car accidents, and God uniquely gave them new love and life together in 2009. Kathy enjoyed 26 years of life and ministry alongside pastor Rick Ferguson. She has 3 children and 7 grandchildren. 

The Church and The Transgender Next Door

In January 2012, UK couple Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper made headlines when they finally revealed the biological gender of their 5-year-old child. Sasha Laxton, who was beginning to enter school, was announced to be a boy. At birth, the young Sasha was referred to as “the infant,” and, at 3, was on the cover of the family Christmas card wearing a pink tutu. For Sasha’s parents, he was given the freedom to decide who and what he wanted to be, unrestrained by cultural biases. Sasha’s family is just one among a growing trend in gender-neutral parenting. There are online communities, personal blogs, and even books describing how parents can let their children have the liberty to discover their true selves.
In 2013, California governor, Jerry Brown signed a bill allowing transgender public school students to choose which bathroom they would use and sports teams they would play on. Last month, ABC News featured a family whose young daughter insisted that she was a boy. The parents adapted to their daughter’s belief, cutting her hair, changing her clothes, and thereafter referring to her as “he.” According to one gender therapist, the parents gave their child a gift by adapting so early.

Each of these stories demonstrates a growing cultural belief that gender is changeable, self-determined, and not essentially related to one’s biological sex. They claim that a child’s anatomic gender may not necessarily be the gender she identifies with or indicate her sexual orientation. Basically, someone’s biology at birth is just one of many factors determining which gender (if any) that person truly is.

How did this category of gender identity become so culturally defined?

That’s where this gets interesting. According to sources like GenderSpectrum.org, gender is a social construct, meaning that it was created, determined, and developed by society. Gender “is actually taught to us, from the moment we are born. Gender expectations and messages bombard us constantly. Upbringing, culture, peers, community, media, and religion, are some of the many influences that shape our understanding of this core aspect of identity. Gendered interaction between parent and child begin as soon as the sex of the baby is known. In short, gender is a socially constructed concept.”

According to this definition, gender changes with time just as society does. If gender is something determined by society, then it only makes sense that it will adapt to its environment. If society is the standard or principle around which we organize gender identity, then a person’s anatomy is simply one factor among many in determining one’s gender. If we have the ability to determine our gender identity, then to insist on specific gender expressions based on biology is actually holding us back from discovering our true selves. As long as humanity is the hinge around which our view of gender identity revolves, it will change with the times.

As concepts like gender bending, gender-neutrality, transgenderedness, and even asexuality become more mainstream, how do we respond? Here are three, cumulative points to consider:

Biology Cannot Be Separated from Gender Identity

The gender-neutral/transgender community claims that one’s biology is distinct and separable from one’s true gender. But, while gender is not an exclusively biological aspect of humanity, it is in harmony with one’s biology. As Russell Moore says, “Ultimately, the transgender question is about more than just sex. It’s about what it means to be human.” Addressing whether a converted transsexual ought to return to living as a male, Moore points out that one’s gender cannot be changed by a surgical procedure. A man who undergoes a sex change does not actually alter his male identity.

Gender encompasses whole personhood. And since gender is a matter of personhood (biologically, psychologically, relationally, etc.), then it does not follow that we can separate one’s anatomy from their gender identity. A person’s biological structure is that person’s gender. Therefore, the two cannot be separated.

Gender Expression is Not the Same Thing as Gender Itself

One of the things that gender-neutral parents often cite is that they want their children to have the freedom to like things that are stereotypically associated with the opposite gender. Boys can like pink and yellow and girls can like blue and green. Boys can play with dolls and girls can like trucks. All of these things are gender expressions, which change with culture and time. Gender expressions usually are social constructs. Just compare hair lengths for men in a 1^st century Eastern culture with a 20^th century Western one. That’s not to say that these expressions are of little importance. In reference to masculinity, John Piper describes that the mature man recognizes and is sensitive to cultural expressions of what is considered masculine, and adapts his behavior to fit what is culturally masculine (Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 43).

But while these cultural expressions may articulate one’s gender identity, they do not determine it. In other words, if a little girl loves sports, cars, and playing in the mud, that does not mean that she is actually a male with the anatomy of a female. In the case of the girl whose family adapted to her belief that she was a boy, there is no guarantee that she will not, one day, believe she is a girl. Expression communicates identity, but it does not determine identity.

Gender Identity is a God-Centered, Not Man-Centered, Reality

The core of the transgender debate is about authority. Who has the right to name a human being? If God created human beings in the image of God (Gen 1:27), then gender is given primarily to express something about God, rather than ourselves.

The ultimate purpose of gender is to image the character and nature of God. And it bears significance on our personhood, both individually, and relationally (Gen 1:27-29, 2:18-25, Eph 5:22-33). Karl Barth said it this way: “That God created man as male and female, and therefore as His image and the likeness of the covenant of grace, of the relationship between Himself and His people, between Christ and His community, is something which can never lead to a neutral It, nor found a purely external incidental and transient sexuality, but rather an inward, essential and lasting order as He and She, called for all time and also for eternity.”[1]

If God is the ultimate reality around which we understand our gender, then only He has ultimate authority to define our view of gender. To claim that one’s true gender is different from one’s anatomy at birth not only assumes the authority to name ourselves, but also claims that God has given us a gender that is out of alignment with our whole being (Ps. 139:14).

The Church and the Transgender Next Door

Our gender-bending culture would like to believe that its transgender trends are a sign of barrier-breaking progress. But, in reality, it signifies a God-denying suppression of truth (Rom 1:21-32). The tragedy of the transgendered woman is that she is stamping out the self-ingrained signposts that lead back to Him. The increasing presence of transgender individuals demonstrates humanity’s underlying desire to understand themselves, to achieve a sense of wholeness. But the wholeness they are searching for can only begin with reconciliation to their Creator, through the Redeemer who came to restore their whole person to God, body, soul, spirit…and gender (Rom 8:23, 1 Thess 5:23).

Now more than ever, our world needs a courageous, Christ-proclaiming Church to unashamedly articulate the truth of male and female as made in the image of God. And, through that truth, to call back every male and female to the One whom they were created to image.

[1]Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961),207-208.

Katie McCoy is the editor of BiblicalWoman.com and is pursuing a PhD in Systematic Theology at Southwestern Seminary. When she’s not reading for her classes (a rare occasion!), she loves hanging out with friends, eating sushi, learning new words and shopping with her mom.

Neglected Ministry: Are We Serving Effectively?

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  (Luke 16:10 NIV)

I got a wake-up call and heart check while studying God’s Word recently...  

I was studying about serving the Lord effectively with the hopes of understanding what serving really means and consists of.  

If we were brutally honest with ourselves, would we find that we are neglecting the most important ministries that God has blessed us with?

We seek intently to gain glamourous and well-seen “showboating ministries”, while other ministries - being a wife, a mother, a daughter, or a friend - are often neglected.  

While I do believe that the more public ministries are necessary and effective, they are not for everyone, nor are they given to everyone.  

We may pray, asking God to bless us with a more expansive ministry, but if we are overlooking ministries that we have already been entrusted to how can we be trusted with more?  

How can we serve more effectively, then? When we arrive home and meet Jesus face-to-face, we all want to hear: 

‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’  (Matthew 25:21 NIV)

I think we, first, need to look at what serving is and what it is not.  

The definition of serving is to “perform duties or services for (another person or an organization); minister to.  

Therefore, serving is: sacrifice, unselfishness, availability and access for Gods use and purposes, and being aware of a need and filling it. 

However, serving is not: a competition, a platform to show off, a performance, or for your own glory, purposes or motivations.

Serving effectively requires a change in our outlook and perspective.  We need to look at serving as an honor, not a chore.  It also requires that we remain connected to God by staying in God’s Word, praying, and laying at His feet in surrender.  When we are in complete submission and surrender to God and His Will, God is fully able to work through us.  Remember: we are the vessels of God; He is the captain.  

But why is serving others so important to the Kingdom of God?  

Rick Warren has said, “The only way you can serve God is by serving other people.” This proclamation is supported in God’s Word in Matthew 25:40. God’s glory and His love are exhibited through our serving.   

There is no shortage of selfishness or selfish people trying to gain notoriety, but a loving, selfless, and self-sacrificing servant of God stands out like a beacon of light in the midst of the darkness. 

Serving does not come naturally to us and that is why God is so evident in it. Serving goes against our flesh and what we may want; it is truly a sacrifice.  

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1-2 NIV)

There are side effects of not serving effectively or serving with the wrong motives. These are not always evident to us, that is why staying in prayer and God’s Word are essential.  

The most common side effects are likely burn out and feeling drained.  Feelings like these should alert us to look closer at our serving and ministering.  

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. (Proverbs 11:25 NIV)

“God didn't add another day in your life because you need it.  He gave it because someone out there needs you.” - Unknown

Leilani is a single mom to a beautiful 4 year old little girl. She is in love with the Creator of the stars. Her mission is simple yet so big, to encourage and bring Jesus to all in need. To bring hope by loving people, writing, photography, music, poetry/spoken word and meeting people right where they are. God's Grace is her air.

Four Disciplines for a Healthy Identity

It was like ice water to the face, I became a pastor’s wife at 22 years old. I was not prepared for the onslaught of busyness, spiritual warfare, and expectation. I had no coping plan. The brunt force of my own idealistic expectations and other’s real and perceived expectations hijacked my identity.

‘Pastor’s wife’ became foundational to my identity instead of solely my calling. These impossible expectations personified into a false inner coach who barked orders and criticized when demands were unmet. This inner voice was my constant companion choking out truth.

The ability to meet these demands became the measure of my value. I gobbled down man’s affirmation, seeking fleeting moments of peace only to burnout and become discouraged when the opinions of others flat-lined or when my self-expectations proved unattainable.

Through our self-talk we are always assigning ourselves an identity. Questions of self-doubt will always come.

“Is who I am enough?  Am I strong enough? Faith filled enough? Godly enough?”

I have often shopped for these answers horizontally in people’s opinion of me or from my ability to perform, plunging myself into a frenzied cycle of busyness and perfectionism. This cycle can mobilize an attack of discouragement, burnout, depression, or anxiety.

I remember a breaking point I had during the beginning days of our first church plant. I had been running hard on the hamster wheel of perfectionism, trying hard to meet every expectation. One Sunday morning I found my self-fueled endurance depleted and I dragged myself out of bed feeling like a zombie. I felt an inner panic as I got ready that morning, trying to gather my scattered thoughts and emotions. It felt impossible, even unbearable, to walk into those two doors and be “on”. I wanted to hide from the world, from people, and from my weakness. I looked in the mirror and saw a failure. How did I get to this place? How do I get out? And how do I protect myself from returning again?

If I could sit across a living room from you, I would tell you that four disciplines have helped as I continually ward off this battle.

Preach truth to yourself.

Be proactive with your self-talk. When the questions “Am I enough?” or “Can I do this?” come, may the truth of Christ and who He has made you to be, be your ready answer.

God calls me by name and I am His. I am his workmanship created for good works that he has prepared in advance for me. He gives me everything I need for life and godliness. I am called a daughter and a friend of God. I am free from sin. I have peace with God through Christ. I can come boldly into his presence and find help in my neediness. My life is hidden in Christ. His love, patience, and strength are unfailing.

Fire your inner coach.

May the inner voice assigning your identity, be Truth.

Extend Grace to Yourself.

How I have belittled God’s grace by refusing to extend it to myself. If we passionately teach and advocate for God’s grace everywhere else but our own hearts, the hypocrisy of our perfectionism and self-sufficiency empties our message.  I even made a sign to hang in my office to daily remind me of this discipline. The sign simply read, “Extend grace to yourself today”.

Give yourself permission to be needy in Christ.

I hate the idea of being a needy woman. I would rather a southern bell “Bless my heart” about pretty much anything else. “Bless her heart she hasn’t lost her pregnancy weight.” “Bless her heart she is just plain tacky.” “Bless her heart she can’t cook worth a lick.” These would all be welcome if I could just not be NEEDY! But we must put our aversion aside in humility and be needy before Christ. We are and will forever be in desperate need of his strength and help. May we not be afraid of our weaknesses, but may they be what compel us to run to the feet of our Jesus.

Embrace your design.

What a waste to spend our valuable energy on being sorry for what we aren’t. Our enemy seeks to entrap us in jealousy and insecurity through comparison. All the while we scoff at our own design in discontentment and approach our God assignments with a sense of self-defeat. A mighty woman is one who chooses to embrace her design. This woman’s fearsome boldness translates into great kingdom influence.

Is this a struggle for anyone but me?

Has being a pastor’s wife hijacked your identity?

Let’s get off the hamster wheel.

Tish Hedger has a B.A. Biblical Studies from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is working on her M.A. Counseling Psychology. She lives in Kansas City where her husband is the director for the Midwestern Seminary Center for Church Planting.

Dealing With Conflict In Ministry

Conflict in ministry. It happens. Someone will betray you. A volunteer will let you down. A ministry team member will disappoint you. Misunderstandings will occur. Often.

Conflict happens. Drama, however, is a choice.

Betrayal doesn’t have to lead to years of church turmoil – public or private. Frustrations don’t have to escalate to Level 5. Disappointments don’t have to result in terminated relationships. Misunderstandings can be righted. In short, conflict can lead to peace, not drama.

Sounds good…even holy, but how is it possible? How do we respond when we face opposition or criticism? Well, running and hiding isn’t a good option since we will most likely see our offenders next Sunday. And, God says gossiping about the situation (even in the form of a prayer request – yes, I just went there) is not acceptable, either.

So, let me give you a quick summary on dealing with conflict in ministry leadership:

• Focus on God - remember who God has called us to be and the character He expects us to display.
• Go First – have a private conversation with the person and accept responsibility for our part of the conflict.
• Speak The Truth in Love – honestly, but cautiously share our feelings. Consider how our words will be perceived and choose them wisely. Our goal should always be to win the relationship….not the argument. Wagging our neck or our finger doesn’t win our opponent over; it only serves to further divide.
• Be Gentle – soften our approach and our words when we engage those with whom we have conflict. How? Listen more than we speak, choose the right time to talk, and guard our tone. What we say matters; how we say it matters more.
• Forgive - Forgiveness doesn’t mean we condone the wrong or that we’ll forget the pain. It does mean that we show the same mercy to others that God chooses to show to us. Not easy to do, I’ll admit. Nevertheless, this is a muscle we MUST stretch.

The next time your temperature rises because someone has overstepped their bounds, remember the way God instructs us to respond. If we do, the only drama we’ll see will be on TV….not in our churches.

Tricia is married to Shawn Lovejoy, Founder and Lead Pastor of Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, GA. Shawn and Tricia have 3 fabulous children. Tricia leads through her women’s ministry at Mountain Lake, mentors pastor’s wives across the country, and blogs at SharpenHer.com.

Can There Be Real Equality with Distinctions?

Distinction: We believe that God has given women and men distinctive roles within the family and the church; that these roles were intentionally created and given prior to human sin; that according to God’s design, these roles are interdependent but not interchangeable (Gen 2:18-25;1 Cor 11:3, 8-9, 11-12; 1 Tim 2:12-14). [Biblical Womanhood]

My Personal Journey

As a kid, one of the nicknames my parents called me was “Mouth” because I loved to argue. So much so that for several years, I thought I would be a great lawyer, specifically a criminal prosecutor. I thought I could put my rhetorical “skills” to good use on behalf of others. My mom likes to say that when I got really wound up, I would start gesturing emphatically, pointing my crooked finger, and declaring in a high-pitched voice, “IT’S NOT FAIR!” Apparently, that was kind of like my catch phrase as an elementary student. I would drop that line and expect that everyone could certainly see that I was fighting to overturn some gross injustice and be swayed to my point of view. In my young mind, for things to be fair, everything had to be the same. If my three older brothers had certain privileges, I should have them. If my twin sister was able to do something, so should I. You get the picture.

Once I became a Christian, I brought that understanding of fairness and equality meaning sameness to the party as I read the Bible. I reasoned that if God was just and fair, He would have to treat all people in exactly the same way. If God treated all people equally, then there could not be any distinctions, according to my own human reasoning and logic.

As a new believer in high school, when I came to passages about a distinct, unique plan for the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, I will admit that I struggled to harmonize what I was reading with my ideas about the “fairness” of God. I lost sight of the goodness of God. I questioned whether He was really just and fair. I did not grasp that this unique plan for Israel was for the good of all people because the Israelites were supposed to live in such a way that people would want to know the God they served.

In college, when I first remember reading passages in the Bible that discuss distinct roles for men and women in the family and church, I tried to explain away those passages. A concept like submission just wasn’t palatable to my personality. Being told there were things I couldn’t do awakened my fighting spirit. Even though I didn’t want to teach men in the church, reading a passage that said I couldn’t do it transformed me back into a young elementary student asserting, “It’s not fair!”

I have a distinct memory of a very heated argument I had with one guy over 1 Timothy 2:12-15. We were both working as interns for six weeks at a Christian leadership conference for teenagers and had this huge blow-up towards the end of the summer over our different understandings of those verses. The irony is that he was arguing the very position that I now hold. However, in college, I had yet to really dig into that passage to try to understand what God was saying. Instead, I was viewing it through my presupposition that equality must mean sameness so I just dismissed this guy’s argument as being chauvinistic.

But then came a period in my life after college where I devoted serious study to trying to really understand the Bible and what passages like Genesis 1—3, 1 Timothy 2:12-15, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, and others mean instead of what I wanted them to mean. I had to discard some of my wrong ideas about equality when confronted with biblical truth.

Can There Be Equality with Distinctions?

I don’t know about your own journey, but I do know that many women I talk to struggle with the idea of some distinct roles or functions for men and women. What understandings or ideas do you bring to the party, so to speak, when you read the Bible? When you read the section on “Distinction” at the beginning of this post, did you balk at the idea of distinct roles for men and women like I did at one point in my life?

When you hear the word “distinctive” do you ever think “less valuable” or “less important” or something along those lines?

That is not what distinctive means. Distinctive simply means something that is characteristic of a person or object that distinguishes it from another thing. When it comes to men and women, the Bible does teach that there are some distinct roles when it comes to the marriage relationship and when it comes to certain functions within the church. This fact does not mean that God thinks men are better than women. “Boys rule and girls drool” is not our God’s credo.

The Bible teaches that something can be equal in value and worth yet have distinctions. An example of this is that each member of the Trinity is equally God, but God the Father has some roles distinct from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and vice versa. Each member of the Trinity is equally God and equal in value yet distinct in some of their functions. Another example is found in 1 Corinthians 12 regarding spiritual gifts. Every Christian is equally part of the body of Christ—none more important than another. However, each has distinct gifts to serve that body. God in His infinite wisdom has designed it this way; He gave each Christian woman her spiritual gift “just as He desired” (1 Cor 12:18).

The Significance of Distinctions

God intentionally created men and women as distinct, yet complementary beings (Gen 1:27,2:18). He did not create us haphazardly or in some willy-nilly fashion. While both men and women are given the responsibility of being God’s image-bearers to the rest of creation (Gen 1:27), God had a specific purpose in mind when He created Eve—she was to be a “helper” for Adam (Gen 2:18, 20). Being a helper does not mean that Eve was inferior to Adam in any way. It means that, from the very beginning, God had a plan and purpose in creating two distinct genders. Men and women need each other; they are “interdependent” (1 Cor 11:11) but not interchangeable with each other. These distinct roles for women and men were a part of God’s plan before sin ever entered the world.

Consider just one distinction—What does it really look like for a woman to be a helper? When a marriage relationship is described in the Bible, a wife is called to submit to and respect her husband as unto the Lord while a husband is called to love his wife just as Christ loved the church (Eph 5:22-33; Co. 3:18-19). Why would God ask this of wives? Why make this distinction? The reason is that the way a husband and wife interact with each other should be a picture of the way God interacts with the church (Eph 5:32). Christian marriages are to be a witness to lost people about the way Christ (pictured through husbands) loves the church (pictured through wives)! Our distinctions are not about us ultimately; this design portrays/proclaims the heart and character of God.

More to Consider:

– What understandings or ideas do you bring when you read the Bible?

– When you hear the word “distinctiveness,” what comes to your mind? Is it consistent with what God says about the equal value of women within the distinct roles He designed?

– Since these distinctions were created to reflect the gospel in the world (Eph. 5:22-33), what are the implications of living out of sync with this design?

Candi Finch serves as Assistant Professor of Theology in Women’s Studies at Southwestern. She loves used book stores, travelling, getting to teach young women, and eating any food (especially bacon) she doesn’t have to cook herself! Her secret ambition in life is to compete on Survivor or The Amazing