To the Editor:

If the article in view would have simply been about the wrong of not retaining a female Hebrew professor at a Baptist seminary because she is a woman, I would not have had an issue with it.

I don’t think one can make an argument that the Bible’s position against women being pastors/teachers of the church would disqualify them from teaching in the school classroom or in some situations a seminary classroom.

But that is not the entire thrust of the article.

The author goes on to blast Southern Baptist leadership for taking the Bible literally and not using logic.

This is where I have the problem.

The first rule of Biblical interpretation is to take it literally unless the genre demands otherwise.

The passages that deal with men being the leaders of the church are not poetic, nor are they apocalyptic.

Therefore, they must be taken literally. To fail to do so takes away any authority the Bible has.

It creates a buffet approach to the Bible where one can take what he likes and leave behind the rest.

And to those that would argue that it was simply cultural, I would point out that it goes all the way back to creation when Adam was created first.

How arrogant one must be to think that they have stumbled across some truth that 10,000 years of God’s people have missed, almost 2,000 years of the church has missed, and hundreds of years of our Baptist forefathers have missed.

This hasn’t been an issue until the last hundred years or so, and it is not an example of our enlightenment.

It is an example of our bringing the Bible under the judgment of our reason, education, culture and popular opinion, which is exactly what the author appeals to as final authority when she cites logic as the answer to the issue four times in one paragraph.

Logic is not the answer, nor is it authoritative over the eternal, unchanging Word of God.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”

And we know that God’s Word is “a light to our feet and a lamp to our path.”

It teaches some things that are difficult for the modern mind to embrace, but it still teaches them.

And it is our responsibility as Christians and Baptists to align our lives and our churches under it, even when the world or some of our own disagree.

Micah Gandy

Pastor, Elkdale Baptist Church