Permissible or Appropriate? Implications for How We Gather

• Propriety is choosing what is fitting over what is merely permissible—for the glory of God and the good of others.
• Our worship should be informed by a thoughtful response to those watching our worship. 
• Propriety is the Spirit-shaped discernment of what is fitting in a given moment so that our lives visibly honor God, build up the Church, and do not obscure the gospel before a watching world.
• Self-actualization and religious fundamentalism (rules) both hinder propriety.
• Consideration should be given to how gender is faithfully expressed in our culture.

• Propriety in Worship sermon
• Propriety Notes PDF

Let's not be fearful. Let's believe the best about one another. Let's love one another, let's trust God. Jesus says the Holy Spirit of God has send all truth. Let's not compromise the scriptures and let's not be worried about having our own way. Let's let's just care about what God tells us to care about his glory one another and the proclamation of the gospel and the demonstration of the gospel to a watching world and it and if we'll do that, that's the context within which Jesus says the Holy Spirit will guide you.

Welcome back to the Grace Church Podcast. I am here in studio with Whitney and Bill White, one of our teaching pastors, and we have a little bonus First Corinthians content for you today. So welcome guys. Hey, Scott, good to see you. Good to be here. And Bill, before we jump in, it's been a little while since you've been on the podcast and you have been spending a lot of time in the First Corinthians.

So I would love for you to just tell us what are you learning through this teaching series. I mean, I've had a great time going through it. Honestly, the further I get away from, I don't know what the right word is, Maybe carrying what other preachers or my seminary professors or whatever, I don't know. You know, when you win this seminary, it's like there are these positions and there are these things that are on the inside of wherever you come from or on the outside. And you're always kind of that that gets in deep when you're young.

And I didn't realize how much of that was still in me. Because you want to. You really want to do it the right? Yeah, that's right.

And so I don't know if it's I've just gotten old and made peace with the fact that I'm going to be wrong all over the place, or if somehow going through First Corinthians this time has been profoundly different for me. I am open in ways that I have not been before and I don't not intentionally. So some of that's probably just season of life that I'm in. And you know what? I have room to think about and be challenged by.

But I'm seeing a lot of things in the text that I have not seen before that I glossed over. And it's been really fruitful for me. I'm having experiences just as I sit and listen and am taught. I mean, Matt's sermon last week was one of the most, I mean, helpful moments for me. I'm, I'm in a season where I have a lot going on some health issues and my family on my side and Rachel's family and we're being stretched in some ways and I'm feel my frailty and for some reason I just had an encounter with God that was profound and actionable this week.

You know, so things I, I texted Matt during the sermon and I was just, I was struggling to find words. It was after the sermon actually, but it was actually a part of my worship afterwards. I just sat down and I just thanked him for how helpful that was for me and made both some confession because and some movement and a new direction. Rachel and I had great conversations after that. And it's just been a lot of fun for me to to be in all of that. And I am learning a ton as I study.

So I'm studying with a with a Methodist scholar who I really respect. I started studying with him some when I was working through Revelation. So the way I study, I try to get outside of what's normal for me because I know what I think, but why do I need to read something that reinforces what I already think? And he's probably taught a lot of this before. Yeah, and I've talked a lot of this before.

So I'm like looking for someone who loves the scriptures, who may not agree with me, who hopefully doesn't, and who's going to challenge me with some new frameworks. And so that's been a lot of fun for me and I don't know what to attribute it with. And I'm also studying which at GPT now, right?

And so and I've been working for a while. Bro freaks some of you out. John Byber don't like it. But I'm just telling you, man, instead of going to the library and buying books, because I've studied for so long now, I know how to task Chad to go, yeah, pull information and to argue with me, right.

And so all of that has been real helpful for gathering, you know, I have more information. And it's just been, I'm learning a time and I'm encouraged about where we are as a church and what we're trying to do. And I feel like we're connected to the mainstream, but I'm also seeing ways in which we need to move. And that's been invigorating for me. And I think it's reflected in the teaching that we're having. Our discussions on the teaching team has been great.

I think everybody is really learning and it's, it's a fun season for me of being able to do all of that. So. Now it's been really rich. It's it's been nice to hear different voices as part of the teaching team. First Corinthians, you kind of forget when you get away from a book just how how how deep it is. And that's part of the occasion for this podcast.

We're going to get into a section here over the next 4 chapters that has a lot to do with the Christian worship experience. And what we wanted to do was just do a little deeper dive, present some content that you really can't do on a weekend service. And so Bill just finished teaching the first section of Chapter 11.

So if you haven't listen to that yet, if you weren't in church this past weekend, I encourage you just to kind of hit the pause button, go back and listen to that. And we're going to pick up on that and kind of explore a big theme that you're going to see over the next few chapters. And so, yeah, Bill, why don't you tell us really kind of what you had on your mind when you want to take this idea and kind of kind of pull it apart. What, what is the big idea that you're you're ruminating on these days?

So I've been working just personally on the idea of living within the boundaries of propriety. And it's a word that we don't use very often. And as as a leader, you know, for the last 10 to 15 years, one of one of my struggles, because words come quickly to me.

I am aggressively interested in learning new things. And is, is that I'd, I'd go beyond what is fitting in certain environments. I don't always consider the other person as well as I should.

And it's a it's, it's not a most of the time it's not, I don't think it's a big sinful issue. It's because I can be redirected pretty quickly, but I'm just because I'm chasing down truth, I'm chasing down information and I'm trying to make progress and, and, and that causes me to go beyond in different environments. And so I thought maturity for me will be me being more aware, more restrained, thinking about the environment that I'm in, the people I'm in that with and not going too far, not pushing it too far and and just being more considerate.

And so I've been working on that talk to Mike Tribeiro about a years ago and says one of my things that I've been working on. But then as it's gone along, I'm seeing it more and more in the scriptures. And so I've been doing work to come up with a definition for me and operating definition. And I see it especially when we get into this section and we have been dealing with it on some of the issues that that we've been dealing with personally around Christian liberty, love for others and all. Strong and weak.

That's right, all of those sorts of things. And but where it really gets clear is when we move into the idea of corporate gathering. A shared space. That's right, yeah.

And so when, when we come together and, and Paul makes this argument, and I'll talk about it in the sermon, that heaven is present in a very real sense. I mean, Paul says the angels are watching and you need to make decisions when you're in a a gathered assembly of the Saints to do the will of God, to honor God, to pursue his mission together corporately. You need to be aware there are angels there and that needs to in some sense impact how you behave. And you need to be aware that there are unbelievers who were there and a watching world who is.

So it's not just like the worship language of we have an audience of one that is the opposite of what the Bible says about worship. The Bible says we worship before the nations, we worship with the weak, we worship with the strong, we worship with the poor, we worship with the rich, we worship with the sick, we worship with the healthy. And that propriety is an acknowledgement of all those things. And then I think about what is fitting, what is fitting for how I speak, but for how I carry myself, for how I dress.

That's a very. Countercultural idea, and it's a different question than what is permissible, what is OK? What can I get away with? That's exactly, that's exactly right. And, and, and that's one of the, that's the boiled down definition is we don't need to be concerned about what's permissible. I mean, I was in student ministry.

I talked about this in the sermon and everybody always want to know where's the line? How far is too far in dating, right? Oh, that's totally the wrong answer. I got pretty good at at answering that question because I got asked it so many times that finally I got to if you intentionally arouse the desire that you can't righteously satisfy, you have defrauded your brother or sister.

So when somebody asks you how far is too far and you say that, that kind of shuts them down a little bit, but but it's just the wrong way to approach it. I'm not trying to get away with something. I'm not trying to push a boundary. What I'm trying to do is what is the fitting way for me to treat a brother or sister in this relationship that we have?

And so, you know, the Apostle Paul was concerned about that in worship. He's very concerned about that. And and I would say today, what we think of as a worship service is very different from what they were doing back then. And they were gathering more than we were gathering.

And so I would just say, let's not just focus on Sunday worship, but what's thinking about whenever we come together as the people of God for the purposes of God to do the will of God, that what does it look like for us and that kind of gathered space to behave properly and with propriety. All right, so let's do this. Let's define it, and then let's talk about some of the cultural challenges of why this is such a foreign concept, and then we'll walk through the different parts of the definition.

So give us your best definition of propriety. OK, so this is my working definition that I've just pulled together from a bunch of different places. OK, Trademark Bill White right here.

Well, I mean, I don't know about that, but let's, let's, I don't know how much I want to go on the hook, but here we go. For us as a church, this is what I'm thinking about. Propriety is the spirit shaped discernment of what is fitting in a given moment.

So the Spirit shaped discernment of what is fitting in a given moment so that our lives visibly honor God. It's obvious. Build up the church and do not obscure the gospel before a watching world.

So we need the Holy Spirit to give us discernment so that we will visibly honor God, edify the church, build it up and not obscure the gospel before a watching world. And what I like about this definition is it gets us off the idea of, you know, rules. And it puts us in a position where we have to be responsible to trust God and, and think the way we've been studying about doing individually, you know, with regards to meat sacrifice to idols and the applications to how we live our lives and how we handle our Christian freedoms.

You know, is that we, we have to become mature people who can be led by the Spirit and know in this environment, this might be fitting, but in this environment, this might not be fitting. And so it leads us to have this kind of openness. Because without the Spirit and without goals that we're aiming for, what we're left is no rules.

So just write whatever I want to do. Yes, self actualization is the tyranny of the self on on the one hand, and so which is what our culture loves, right is I have personal sovereignty. So if I decide that this is my identity and then this is who I am. If you're in my space, then while you're in my space, you have to acknowledge, you know, by rules essentially about how you're going to talk to me about there is no objective standard to which we're all being held to.

And so, so it's tyranny of the actualization of the individual on their terms, which destroys biblical community and destroys real unity because we all have to play this little game with one another where we humor one another, but we don't find any real union. And then on the other side is a more traditional kind of thing that we associate with a more fundamentalist world view, right? Which is that we just create all these rules and these standards and we don't have to think about how to enforce them.

They just, we're tyrannized by these rules and these standards. And then it creates this real dehumanizing effect and it it flattens out how God wants to work, because God can only work in standards that we created, which now become an authority above the Scriptures. So which is the bigger threat now? Yeah, I mean, that's a difficult thing. I think a lot of it depends on your context, right? And I think that's where this language of propriety is so important.

Yeah, but and it is an interesting that really but on on both sides it's fundamentalism. Oh, yeah. It's total. No, Everybody's a fundamentalist right. That's the thing. That's bizarre.

Yeah. There's either religious fundamentalism or individual fundamentalism. That's exactly political fundamentalism. Whatever, when people that just like making rules because rules are clear, and whether it's the rules that I've made for myself or it's the rules that I think that I can pick out a scripture that's more convenient than having to think for myself. And then the level beyond that of like, actually having to engage the Spirit and discern something that's so much harder and Gray than just something that's black and white.

Yeah, I agree. And I mean, then we then we have a group of people. I mean, because what this is just, I've been doing this for a minute now. It's one of the good parts about getting older is it's, it's just in my life and over the course of having been leading groups of people. I mean, I got my first paycheck, the lead a group of people when I was 17. That was a bad idea, but it happened.

So that's 40 years now for me coming up on 41 that I've been getting paid one level or another to lead a group of people and, and almost all of that time within the church. And people are just way more fragile now, more polarized, more threatened by disagreement, more preaching and teaching is more challenging because I the need to demonstrate sensitivity to so many different things. And I'm not even saying all that's wrong. OK, but it's new, it's newer. It is newer and, and I think some of it is a legitimate correction in our world.

OK. So I, I think we need to be corrected in some ways, but, but it is, but it is challenging and it's difficult to have civil disagreement and, and, and which leads to progress and growth, right? Yeah, it's pretty, it's just hard. It's hard to get there.

So if we jump into back into the definition, we're talking about spirit shaped discernment of what is fitting. Fitting is that. What is appropriate is that is that. I think appropriate is a good word.

You know, there's a whole range of things who are here that are here. If you go back and look like Jim Taylor and I've been talking about this idea. So his beautiful brain is getting infected with this and he's like, I have not thought about this that much.

So he's getting ready to do a word study on on the language that is translated, befitting or fitting. And if you go to some more wooden English translations of the New Testament, so there's like a Greek Word family that connotes that and you can go study that. And Jim's like, it's everywhere. I'm like, it is everywhere. And this is what I think is happening culturally, as I think we so value authenticity and transparency. And and I know this has been the case for me personally as a Gen. Xer, All right, so to speak for my generation to not.

I got tired of having spiritual leaders who were quote, UN quote, being nice, but when they came up against something hard or controversial, they they wouldn't take a hard edge on Scripture. And as I read Jesus, man, once I really became a Christian was born again and I started reading the Bible as a believer for the first time. I was like, this is all very controversial and and our leaders are not talking like this in most, most churches. They would pick certain safe things that they're going to pound on, which largely had to do with sins they didn't struggle with, right, Right.

Things that were easy to accomplish. So we'll feel better about ourselves because we're teetotalers and we don't drink alcohol. We'll feel better about ourselves because we don't struggle with same sex attraction.

So we'll beat up on gay people, right? Because that's something that's outside of me and as an easy thing. And then we marginalized all these people who are struggling with things because the gospel is actually 4.

But we'll do that. But then these really difficult things that cut us, we want to dress. And so for me and my generation, I think that's our church is a little bit of a reaction against that.

So we really value authenticity, transparency. We're going to have a hard edge. We're not going to take the edge off of things. And, and, and in some ways we've been an overcorrection on all of that. That's part of what I've been learning personally.

And so it's like, no, what is not? We don't just need to react. We need to think what is fitting. There is a time to have a hard edge, and then there's a time. To not have a heartache.

So not what is permissible and not what is a reaction, but but really going back to these three applications of visibly honoring God building up the church and not obscuring the gospel. So let's talk about those three things as a product of this spiritual shape discernment to what is what is fitting. So why the so just walk us through those three particular. Sure.

So when I'm thinking about these things, the the place this came from is as I was studying First Corinthians 11, which I I came to see really for the first time that that it is just connected to the all these other passages that come after that is the discrete unit within the letter. It got clear to me that these are the three arenas within which Paul is concerned. The Ephesians behave properly. He's not concerned about what they're doing. He says women are prophesying and women are praying in the service.

They're speaking for God and they are representing the people of God to God. They're speaking for the people. So he ain't upset about that. He's upset about the fact that they're doing it with their heads uncovered. He says that's not fitting. It's not appropriate.

Now you go study it and you look at what the what the text, the original context. The best I can get to is there a number of things around what's an honorable life and Roman household codes and how women should behave and men should behave. And, and Paul is not arguing about whether all those things are appropriate or not appropriate or they're eternal. He hadn't hanging on to any of that. He's just saying you need to have this posture when you do what you do because the angels are watching, God is watching, you are all here together what is appropriate and the culture is watching.

And so when people come in here that they need to get what we're doing, and your expression needs to not get in the way of that the most, that's the most important thing. And so those three arenas right here that he's talking about is we need to behave in a way that honors God. And so part of that is I'm, I'm, I'm coming with holy hands. I'm trying to do what God wants me to do. And I'm doing it in the reasons that God wants me to do it. I mean, part of honoring God is this is not about me.

I might need to express myself, right? This is about God and this is about my neighbor and, and I've got appropriate humility before that. This is about helping my brothers and sisters. You know, I may have some, I may discover some. This happens to me all the time. I get distracted.

I discover something. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, that was for me. When I'm studying in a sermon, the things that are most interesting, we almost never make it into the sermon because I'm like, that was just for me. That's not for our church.

So you trying to practice being fitting? Yeah, no, that's right. It's like, so most of the time, if you see. So a lot of times I'll call somebody else.

So I'll call other people on the teaching team or I'll talk to a friend and we'll have a conversation about it. That'll make it into the sermon because that was not, that was not edifying for our body. And it could. And it could be self indulgent. It'd be self indulgent. That's exactly right for me in that moment.

It doesn't mean that that was wrong or that insight. It's just like that's not fitting. It was, it's just not fitting. It's not for everybody else. That's something I'm doing with God, and everything that's going on between me and God is not for everybody who's in our church.

Now, if our church had 150 people in it and we were having a dialogue, I'd probably teach very differently, and I think you'd be fitting in that environment. But that's not what I'm doing. Yeah, so God is watching. Others are watching inside the body, building up the church, and then the whole world is. Watching and then, and then the world, the unbelieving world is watching.

And so there is this sense in which we don't want to obscure the beauty of something which in that day in in First Corinthians 11, there are a number of things where Christians were misunderstood. There were all these accusations against them. And as a result of that, Paul is saying, I need you to restrain some of your liberties, even in worship, so these unbelievers won't think we're nuts. It it didn't help anybody. You got heaven forever to do all of that, you know, whatever that is.

But that's not what we're doing here. This is not just you, and God is you and God one another and the watching world. So, and it brings us back to that idea of love governing, I think. Even as you're talking, I think one example that has come into my mind around this idea of propriety and honestly where we are already doing this a few years ago with student ministry, we started training them around this idea. When we go on mission trips with modesty, and you've already brought up modesty, that's a whole different podcast for another day.

But helping them understand that that's not just about clothing, but even we started challenging them on like, hey, what is the brand of water bottle that you bring with you on a mission trip or your book bag or your sunglasses? And like in that moment, are you bringing in this really expensive brand? And all of these kids that we're working with see that and they just get distracted and there's actually like a barrier that's created between us and them when we're trying to create relationship and how that is actually like working against what we're trying to do on this trip.

So it's that exact same idea of we're here for a purpose where we have something that God has asked us to do and how we conduct ourselves works towards that goal or works against that goal in terms of propriety, in terms of appropriateness. So I think, I do think that's one area that we've done this well. But to your point, there's a lot of other areas in which we can continue to apply this idea.

Well, and it's funny, we're going to come back to the worship gathering in a second, but something that as we were preparing for this that I had never thought about, and I've taught this passage a ton, But in 2nd Corinthians 8, when they're talking about collecting an offering and you know, Paul said, he uses the word honorable here, but he says, we, we were careful to be honorable before the Lord, but we also want to be honorable to with everyone else. We want everyone else to see that we were honorable basically in the way that we took this offering. We, we, we had accountability.

We took it together, We delivered it to the church in Jerusalem because the world was watching and they wanted to know, what are they going to do with this money? The church was watching? Are they really going to do, Are they going to use it for themselves? Are they going to take the money?

So I just thought, OK, well, that's you're right, it's everywhere. Yeah, it really is. And even in that environment, like there's so much within the, the let's just say the we're on the ragged edge of the Enlightenment, right?

So humanism does jump the shark. So we've gone all the way into like craziness and and we all know that it's not great, but we we don't really, we're not real sure how to draw that back. So, But even the idea that I don't care what other people think, OK, now there is a biblical sense in which fear of man is a bad motivation for your life. We talk about that all the time.

But Paul cares what other people think, right? Paul cares what other people think. Paul's not resting in his own conscience. Paul's trying to be for everyone to see. Oh, this is all above board, you know, And I just think that that's a. That's fitting. Yeah.

You know, let's put this into what we were talking before. Let's just use a couple of easy examples. Let's talk about a wedding and a funeral just as as quick examples to get your mind going. And then maybe we could push that into our gatherings and just. Sure. Just see what we can find there.

So give us an example of how something would what would what, what what's the what's the negative non propriety? Yeah, impropriety, impropriety, you're right. Impropriety.

So what does impropriety look like as it results results in as it relates to like a wedding or a funeral for example? OK, so I would say like if you're in a wedding, if if I'm officiating a wedding and we've all been to these weddings, right? And so, and they stand out and we remember them is you have a preacher who's got an axe to grind in the wedding. And the wedding is not about the wedding becomes about whatever agenda he has to make a point about what's wrong with our culture or what's wrong with the oppression of women within marriage.

Traditionally, whatever you pick something, there's some axe to grind. And so now this ceremony, which should be any Christian wedding, the core of it is the vows. We have two people who have gathered before God and witnesses, and they are going to take a solemn oath that for the rest of their lives they will fulfill their biblical obligations to one another. That's what a wedding is. You could do nothing else at a wedding. Just two people come down to the front, in front of the people of God.

And then someone gets up and overseas it as a representative of Christ and says, you know, sure, these people are taking these vows. These are timeless vows that have been given to us by God. They're going to vow to do the things that are timeless commands for a husband and wife until Jesus returns. And they're going to do that. You could do that. And that's a wedding, right?

But but you could also have the wedding become about all these things, about people's dreams and their fantasies. And then you can have it, the preacher who wants to take it and hijack it, you know, because I'm a preacher, you know, take it and hijack it and make it about whatever their thing is. And then they turn it into an evangelism ceremony and try to get people saved. They try to whatever, whatever's going on. Same thing with a funeral, right? Right.

Is there's a measure of propriety, of understand what is fitting in this moment. We have people who are grieving. Let's legitimize grief. The Scripture legitimizes grief. Death is an enemy. Death is a defeated enemy, right?

So there are simple things that can be done that that they're just fitting they're for the moment. And when they're done that way, you're like, oh, that's what's supposed to be done. And then when it's not done that way, you're like, well, I mean, all that's true. And I guess sometimes, well, some just fell off Something did seem right. It'd be like. That didn't sit right with me.

No, that's the way people use that language. Right. That's right. And it's like, and then you're giving offense to the gospel.

And so I think religious people do this well, intending all the time. And fundamentally, this is not, I don't think this is super foreign idea to us because if you strip it all the way down, like if you're in a public store with a little kid and they just blurt something out, you know, it's like, oh, that Lady looks funny. And you're like, hey, buddy, that's an inside thought, right? You know, like we, we do understand this idea of here's a space and here's a moment. And we're not going to say that in this moment.

And we really shouldn't think something like that at all. But like we do, I get that. But then we get to be adults and we're like, oh, it doesn't apply anymore. Or it just takes a different. Form yeah, I do think that we have and then our culture again is a reaction. I got to be my true self.

I have to express myself. If I don't do that that's the worst crime I could do is to sin against who I really AM. And, you know, and we've just gotten unmoored in some ways. And it and it creeps in in these in these different expressions with people all over the spectrum. This is not a right or a left issue for sure. You know, there's enough impropriety to go around.

And so it really comes back to this gospel issue of being led by the Spirit to know what is fitting and appropriate and the environment. I've been for the good of the people of God, for the glory of God, and for the, you know, to pro, to promote the beauty of who God is and whose people are to a watching world. It's just a real simple thing that if we could just think about that in the moment, I think it'd be really helpful for us. And in this context, in where we are in the book of Corinthians head coverings, sure, appropriate approach to the Lord's Supper, expression of gifts as they edify the body and we love one another.

So we take that, but we're also applying it to 2026 Grace Church. So just as we got to wrap up Bill, what are some ways that we need to begin to think about this spirit shaped discernment of how we're honoring God, others in the world when we gather for Christian worship? Where do we Where do we need some correction? Yeah. I mean, well, we have to first of all this, what I would say is we, we have to recognize that we, we don't have anything to defend. The truth is the truth and we don't have a corner on the truth.

And our current practice is not, we don't need to canonize, make it a standard, our current practice and what we're doing right now. I mean, a lot of what we're doing, it isn't unbiblical, but a lot of what we're doing is a biblical. You mean just the way that we gather on Sunday? What we gather on. Sunday songs we sing, teaching structure, all that kind of. Stuff, yeah.

Who does it, who leads, how they lead. OK. And so I think we need to just first of all realize that we're in process and we need the spirit of God to guide us, which is such an obvious thing. I'll be honest, I mean, that's, I think I say this, I taught this twice and trying to get as good as I can get it. And I'm, I'm, I'm done trying to get it better.

But but as I was, as I was teaching, I can't remember when I said it, but it's just one of the reasons I came to Grace Church as I came out of a tradition that was very bent on being right about things. And for us, it wasn't rules and but it was theological framework. And, and I'd seen a lot of division and I was beginning to see how fragile people were within that context because you couldn't disagree on the basis of scripture. And I was like, well, this is a problem, you know?

And so I thought I got to get out of all that and this is not going well. And so I got a job in Ken Grace Church, and I have friends who corrected me for coming to Grace Church because they said you don't deal, you don't agree theologically. There's some things where I was distinct from kind of the standard positions of our church and certainly in practice. And I was like, you know, but here's the thing, I I want to be somewhere where people have humility before the Scriptures, then they're open to change.

They're open to be led by the Scriptures and, and I found this to be a place where that could have, I went on staff here. I won't work in here. I was volunteering in children's ministry, you know, and that's where they needed people. I'm worst children's ministry volunteer ever.

So I mean, I really was. And so I quickly got moved out of children's ministry in the student ministry because they're like, he's terrible. So, so I say all of that to say this, I think the important thing for us as a church is that we be open to be led by the Spirit. That's the posture that we need to be in. And, and I do believe that there are ways in which we need to grow. We, we came from, we, we've been trying to engage men as leaders because in most churches in America, when, when we were growing up, you know, you had a paid pastor who is a man, but the rest of the dominant voices in our churches were women.

You know, the best Bible study teachers, the best men's energies were going elsewhere. And so we're trying to call people out of put men out of passivity. So you can't do everything every time you do anything otherwise you'd always you'd never get anything done because you'd always be doing something else. Right.

So you all heard me joke say that, But I mean, we were driving that. And, and I think we've realized now, I don't believe that women in our church, if I show you on our budget, how much money the women of our church are in charge of. And they have oversight, you know, but whatever elder pastor that comes up through knows way less about it than they do, you know, So hiring and firing and leave, we have women leading in ways that are amazing and giving direction. And we found a way to do all of that in a way that I believe is totally fitting and appropriate and went well within the boundaries of biblical propriety.

But I think we also, we need more female perspective and more female voices. And we've got to find a way. How do we acknowledge our manhood and womanhood and, and, and create as much freedom as God wants us to have and not be fearful and reactive? And I mean, I'm going to tell you that, you know, we're not going to have women as governing elders of our church or women as shepherding pastors on our staff. We have women who have the title minister. They're a deaconess.

They're a servant of the church with gifts, calling. They met biblical standards and they are serving in that way. That is, that is an office that we have in our church. That is a position women carry, right?

And so we believe that is a matter of transcendent truth, a matter of transcendent truth, right? But we need to be open to the idea of how how did how does this flesh its way out in the church? And we need to not be fearful. And I'll tell you, I think it's really important that we think about it because the Roman household codes were really important to people in that day and in our day. Other things are important.

And so in order to protect ourselves from making one mistake, we don't need to be so locked down that we discredit ourselves and come across as oppressive and misogynist, you know, in other ways. And so there's, there's we have to make progress in all of that. There's no agenda, you know, but it's a dialogue. Our elders have been engaged on this issue for two solid years. That's when propriety was a personal thing for me that I was working on in my growth and maturity as a believer. As we were studying, arguing, dialoguing about this issue and cut trying to come to Unity on it, I began to see more and more this is just an issue.

This is a bigger issue for the church. Propriety is a category that we struggle with. We're on a journey and we don't need to be self-righteous. We don't need to be dividing from people with whom we disagree. I mean, that's part of why I'm studying with this Methodist guy with whom I disagree, but I have a ton of respect, right, is that he's pushing me to see thing and I am seeing things. I have a fundamentally changed in anything that I believe, but and how we apply transcendent truth, what a timely application is that's going to move and change.

There are issues within our culture that are not wrong that are a corrective and we need to think about how do we express that and become conversant and not just be reactionary and fearful and only concerned about going too far right. And so we create all these rules that, well, women can do this, women can't do that. You know, which really diverts from the whole thing is that men are supposed to own responsibility for what God has entrusted to them, right? And the, the hook, the men are on the hook.

Like the problem with Adam and Eve was that Adam was present and he didn't do his job. And then he took direction from Eve rather than taking direction from God. And then when he was caught in all of that, he blamed Eve and hid behind her and blamed God for giving him Eve. It seems like if you give me a better woman, then I wouldn't have this problem, you know, And we're trying to call men out of that, this.

So there's propriety. It's not just, you know, can a woman breach A sermon? It's, it's, it's a, it's a bigger issue for both of us that we have to figure out what is fitting. Yeah. For us. Yeah, I think that's a good, that's a good word.

So we've got a working definition. We've got some notes we'll put for you in the show notes. This won't be the last time. Like I said, we're in a section. I'm sure this word's going to come up in various ways. And as you've heard Bill talk about just some issues that our governing elders are talking through and like this is going to be a present, present day issue for us.

So we'll we'll keep the conversation going. Bill, any final thoughts before we sign off? Let's not be fearful, let's believe the best about one another, let's love one another, let's trust God. Jesus says the Holy Spirit will guide us and all truth. Let's not compromise the scriptures and let's not be worried about having our own way. Let's let's just care about what God tells us to care about his glory one another and the proclamation of the gospel and the demonstration of the gospel to a watching world and it and if we'll do that, that's the context within which Jesus says the Holy Spirit will guide you.

And, and I think for us as a view, we want to be those kind of people. I'm not as concerned about what we do. I am very concerned both for myself and about, you know, because what what we need to do. I think that's not that complicated. How we do it and the manner in which we love and prefer one another, the pace at which we do what we do, the manner in which we do at the spirit within which we do it, those things really matter. And I think that's that's the thing that it's clear to me that I want us to be that kind of people.

Yeah. Those are the things that that mark one another way more than the outcome often. That's exactly right. And I think that is what Paul is addressing in this. He's not saying you are doing the wrong things. He is saying you are doing the things you need to be doing, but you are doing them in ways that are not befitting the people of God, that don't demonstrate an awareness of who God is, of the heavenly host that has skin in the game of each other and of the watching world.

You care about the wrong thing, which most of the times you care about yourself, right? And then you're just thinking about your experience. And we got to get better at at caring about what we need to care about. And I think that's Paul's point.

All right, well done. Well, thanks for the conversation. Hope that's been helpful for you. Again, make sure that you are listening to the first part of Chapter 11, going to continue through the next few chapters as we talk about propriety and Christian worship. And Bill, thanks for caring and coming on the podcast sharing some thoughts. Yeah, thanks for thanks for having me.

None of this was we didn't have time to make it into the sermon and I thought this might be a helpful companion. So thanks for doing. Yeah, thanks.

So.