WHEN APOSTACY OCCURS AND TRADITION, THE MAGISTERIUM, THE DEPOSIT OF FAITH AND THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLES ARE ABANDONED PARTIALLY OR COMPLETELY, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, A REINVENTION OF THE WHEEL BASED ON SCRIPTURE ALONE

From the Augusta Chronicle's on going series on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. Will there be a similar series on the Counter-Reformation?????

500 years of the reformation

Women answer the call through marriage, family, ministry

By Josh Preston Special to The Chronicle

MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF The Rev. Linda Birchall is the first woman to serve as the senior pastor at St. Mark United Methodist Church in Augusta. Birchall noted that the acceptance of women as clergy doesn’t change overnight.

As we commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we will often look to Martin Luther as a starting point. His conversion to salvation by grace through faith in Christ is his most notable transformation. However, the transformation Luther underwent in regard to his view of marriage and family was perhaps just as great. 

Preston

Luther’s hesitation to marry and unromantic reasons for eventually doing so – to spite the pope and the devil – turned into a “partnership of real depth and touching devotion,” and became “a powerful archetype of the new Protestant family,” according to writer Bethany Jenkins in Without Luther, There Would Be No Bach: How the Reformation Influenced Faith and Work Today.

In her article on the Reformation, Jenkins introduces the context into which Luther was born: “Life was divided into the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular,’ ” she says. “And the priesthood of all believers was marginalized.”

In Luther’s day, the only calling viewed to be legitimate was that of a priest, a monk, or a nun. This was, of course, a life of celibacy. Marriage was for those who couldn’t control themselves and was thus considered second best, writes W. Robert Godfrey in Reformation at Home.

And so, Godfrey points out, the choice was given: “serve God or get married.” The two were viewed as mutually exclusive. In this way, the Reformation’s greatest contribution to our view of marriage and family was to rescue it from one that was fundamentally unbiblical, Godfrey writes.

By returning to a biblical view, we see, among other things, that every Christian is a “priest” (1 Peter 2:9) before God with a general call to do his will “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This means that the calling to marry and raise a family is of tremendous value, even imperative to the Christian worldview and ethic.

From passages like Acts 2, the Reformers came to view the roles of women and children in this context.

And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. (17-18, cf. Joel 2)

Again, in the latter part of the chapter, those listening to Peter are “cut to the heart” and ask what their response to the gospel should be. He responds: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (38-39).

Acts 2 makes it clear that children are indwelt by the spirit and capable of making significant contributions to the kingdom. When we “train up [children] in the way [they] should go,” (Proverbs 22:6), they are being set apart as warriors for the conquering kingdom of God. Christianity grows by 22.5 million per year simply through covenant children being born into Christian families, according to Christianity in Its Global Context, 1970-2020. This should be encouraging to us and reveal to us that children’s ministry is the most effective strategy we can pursue for the advancement of the church.

Passages like Ephesians 5, where a husband’s directive to love his wife as Christ loves the church, leave no possibility for diminishing the value of women. The Old Testament also leaves no room for a low view of women, specifically mothers in the case of King Solomon. When his mother comes to meet him, he rises, bows, and has a throne set for her (1 Kings 2:19). Furthermore, Solomon writes in the first chapter of Proverbs: “… do not forsake your mother’s teaching; indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head, and ornaments about your neck” (8-9). The biblical view of women cherishes them as equal image bearers that must speak into family, church, and society with insights from Scripture.

Drawing on the reformers’ return to biblical teaching, “the Puritans viewed all life-activities, whether deliberately chosen or circumstantially … as callings,” J.I. Packer writes in A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. “To the Puritan mind, marriage and family life constituted a calling in this sense.”

Leland Ryken confirms in Worldy Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, indeed, their “favorite image for the family was a church.” This made the family a calling in itself.

The Puritans could so confidently view the purpose of a family as being the glory of God partly because they believed that God had established the institution of the family. In the words of Williams Perkins, ‘Marriage was made … by God himself, to be the fountain … of all other sorts and kinds of life in the commonwealth and in the church.’ … Because the Puritans had such a high view of the purpose of the family, they naturally viewed it as a calling – a public good and even a form of social action.

The reformers believed that all of life was to be lived coram deo, or “before the face of God.” Marriage and family life are no different and thus constitute a high calling and an integral part of the modern day reformed church. Like Martin Luther and the Puritans before us, a biblical view of Christianity is one that cherishes marriage and the family as callings from God.

Josh Preston is pursuing a master’s degree in theological studies from Covenant Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Alissa, are members of First Presbyterian Church of Augusta.