 Welcome everybody to Unfiltered. Pastor David, it's always good to have you join us. Well, thank you, John. I guess it wouldn't be unfiltered if you weren't here with us. Well, I guess not. It could be the John Matta show. Nobody would watch it. That's it. Pastor, today I wanted to ask you regarding a topic that has been recently surfacing throughout social media and through circles of church conversations. And it regards women occupying the pulpit, and I wanted to get your thoughts on this. Well, that's obviously, like you just said, John, that's a contemporary question. I guess there are more and more churches that are having women speakers, women standing there. And I think what they're doing is they're trying to qualify that by saying, while they're not pastoring, they're simply teaching from the pulpit. And so there's a resurrection of the question as to whether that's appropriate or not. And so from biblical perspective, as I have interpreted scripture over time, one of the aspects of that kind of thing is that there are no women pastors, scripturally. I know that people like to argue that they are, and I know from the early 1900s with the Pentecostal movement and all of those things that took place, it became more popular for people to recognize women as pastors. And the problem is, is that I don't believe that Paul ever did. I don't believe that the Lord ever instructed women to be pastors. And so it becomes difficult because there are those who say, well, they're not pastors. What they are is they're speaking under the headship or authority of the church and they're under the submission of the pastor. And therefore it's okay for them to do that. And I think what it really is today is not so much a movement of the Holy Spirit freeing women to hold up or to occupy certain positions, but rather a giving in to the cultural moment where we're saying, all women can do everything that a man can do and sometimes even better. Therefore, but the Bible doesn't teach that the Bible teaches that that when Paul speaks and he's about to give the qualifications of an elder, he speaks concerning the women in the church and I know the arguments related to this, but he does say, I don't allow a woman to teach, nor do you serve authority over the man. And so right after making that statement, he moves into the qualifications of the one who's a teacher. And he begins with the primary qualification of the elder as the overseer of the church and the pastor. And so in our fellowship, I would never have, will not have women teaching the main congregation. I won't have that. It isn't that they aren't qualified to have intellectual knowledge or the capacity through the Spirit to communicate truth. It's that I think positionally, that isn't something that I will yield to a particular woman. I believe that the only ones that I will have in our pulpit, John, and I know this isn't popular, but as the pastor of this church who's responsible, and yes, I do take those responsibilities seriously, I would not have that. I personally would not have that. I don't believe that women have been given the position of exercising that kind of authority over a congregation of believers. And again, I realize there are other things and things that would relate to that. Well, what about professors at school or what about certain subjects that they are doctors in or whatever, highly qualified? I appreciate and love them very much and all of that. But I have a tendency of saying, you know, in any church congregation where I have a mixed multitude of men and women, I'm not going to be yielding the pulpit to somebody to do that. And that's just the way it is. And there's argument, as we were discussing off-camera, about Akila and Priscilla. You know, that's one, I don't want to say slight in, and then they use the home church inferring that they were out of the church. And then there's arguments about culture, and that was for that day, but this is today. And so there's a lot of different arguments for, but the Word of God is the Word of God. Yeah, you know that the argument of Aquila and Priscilla, they'll say, well, notice that her name is mentioned before his, and those kinds of arguments. But the fact is that one is at that moment, for example, when they were ministering to Apollos, they were speaking in terms of discipling him, bringing him up in a further understanding of the nuances of the scripture. He was lacking in certain knowledge, you know. Doesn't say in the passages that relate to them and Apollos that she was a pastor. It speaks about them having doctrinal knowledge that they were able to, because if they walk with the Lord, communicate to him. When they speak about the church in their house, it doesn't list her as the pastor. It simply makes mention of the fact that there was a church that met in the house. And so it's only recently that people have begun to argue that she was the pastor and he was a follower, which is interesting, in that, okay, if the woman is the leader of the church, she has the authority, which would mean that her husband was submissive to her authority in the church. If that's the case, who's the authority in the home? Do they still exercise those roles? Does Apollos have opportunity now to lead the home as God has commanded the man to, or is he to be submissive to her leadership in there too? It just is real convoluted when you begin to argue that the woman was given the position of a pastor. And the pastor is actually acting as a leader, a spiritual leader over congregations in Holland. In the Old Testament, you had the men who were leaders. You don't have any women who were the priests. You don't have women priests. You have one occasion where Deborah, who was a prophetess, or Deborah rather was a judge. And so you have that. Now, why was that? It's because there was a need for someone to stand up at that moment because apparently the male leadership refused to do that. And so, again, you can find scriptures and try to point them out and say, oh, this is the way it should be. But I just have never been convinced by those arguments, John. There are so many beautiful places that God has given to us to serve. We need to discover our gifts. But to take an office that was not designed for us is never proper. Amen. Well, thank you, pastor. I just wanted to get your feedback because, again, it's resurfacing and it's gaining traction in a lot of places. And so I just wanted to get your feedback and thoughts as our senior pastor. So thank you for that. Just a couple of reminders that we have our services at 8.30 and 10.45 this Sunday. And pastor, you've taken us. Last Sunday was amazing. You took us to John 21, but we're in Mark still. And we looked at the restoration of Peter. This week, we're still in Mark 16. We're going to be looking at the Great Commission. Oh, good. Looking forward to that. I know you've been sharing a little bit with me. So it's going to be a good study. If I had your friends and family to come out, men, Sunday is the last day to pick up your register for a men's fishing trip that will be coming up here in about a week. If you want more information, you can stop by our website and then men again for a men's conference, tickets are on sale. You can stop by the gazebo or you can actually go online and register. So we look forward to seeing you guys on Sunday. Pastor, thank you so much. And just a reminder, next Wednesday is communion. Thank you guys for tuning in and God bless you.