Well, good morning. We got our little first foretaste of winter, and I'm glad we can gather on this winter morning and worship our great God. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the loving mercy that's redeemed sinners. We're thankful, O God, that he gave his life for ours. We marvel at the kindness and compassion the Lord Jesus has demonstrated to his own people. We pray, O God, as we continue on in this study, that we would learn to be compassionate people. that we would learn to demonstrate and exhibit biblical, godly compassion, and to be able to discern it from a kind of false and fake empathy. So help us to learn these lessons, that we might truly mimic and put on display the compassion of our great Savior. Bless our time together this morning. Give us attentive minds and receptive hearts for the glory of Jesus. Amen. Well, we're marching on in our study of sinful empathy, which you know is a topic that flows out of Dr. Rigney's book. I'm following it pretty closely. Last week, we began to look at what Dr. Rigney identifies as the gateway drug for compromise in the church, feminism. And specifically, a couple of the things we learned, we saw how feminism has weaponized a God-given gift, female empathy, and turned it into a tool for steering churches away from biblical truth and, frankly, toward progressive policies. God gave women the ability to sense and respond to emotions and needs in ways that men ordinarily cannot, and that is a designed blessing that God built into women. But feminism has hijacked that gift and has used it for all sorts of godless mischief. We spent a good bit of time discussing a talk that Father Calvin Robinson gave at the Mere Anglicanism Conference in South Carolina, and I think we'll probably touch on that again a bit more this morning. But the big idea of his talk is that feminism in general and women's ordination in particular have functioned as a kind of Trojan horse that was used to smuggle cultural Marxism and critical theory and political liberalism into Christ's church. And according to Father Robinson, the way this has worked has to do with the basic differences that exist between men and women. Men tend to be more theologically rigid, more black and white, more logic-based, more direct in the way they communicate, whereas women tend to be more flexible, more nuanced, more empathy-based, and they tend to more indirect communication. And unfortunately, this is how this has worked itself out in our organizations and institutional hierarchies, where they have male and female leaders working together. That institution will inevitably gravitate toward female norms, right? Again, we talked a good bit about that last week and looked at some, even some secular authors who are noticing that phenomena. But when that happens, When female norms become the centerpiece of an institution, it loses the ability to draw firm ideological lines. They back off from direct speech and rigorous debate, and ideas tend to take a backseat to empathy. And so, say there's a group that claims to be oppressed, and they say the church's doctrine or the church's stance on a particular issue is keeping them away or offending them. Empathy says, at least sinful empathy says, compromise your standards. And you see, if we can begin to identify this paradigm and see how feminism has neutered the church, we'll understand how wokeism made inroads in otherwise conservative bodies. Now behind this discussion is the fact that God created men and women different. their personalities, their gifts, their strengths, their weaknesses. They're different. And men have the gifts and strengths that are better suited for leadership. And we looked at a couple passages last week. We looked at Exodus 12, And it was the incident just after the idolatrous golden calf fiasco. And it became obvious that the Levites were a tribe who were especially zealous for God's honor because they strapped on swords and went through the camp killing their brothers who were still engaged in idolatry. And God said, make them priests. Those are the kind of people who need to be leaders at the tabernacle and the temple. And then we looked at another text, Numbers 25. You'll recall an Israelite man had paraded a Moabite woman through the camp and then engaged in fornication with her. And Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, another man who was zealous for God's honor, took a spear and drove it through both of them. And what was God's response? That's what a priest looks like. And that principle is behind, the principle here is that God's people need leaders who are governed by zeal for God, an unswerving commitment to truth, and they need the ability to make hard decisions that supersede natural love for family and friends. And they have to be unencumbered by raw emotionalism and empathy. And what Father Robinson argued in his talk is that this makes women, what he calls the empathetic sex, ill-suited to the ministerial office because they're going to be inclined to prioritize relational harmony and emotional comfort over theological precision and doctrinal purity. And the fruit of this is obvious. Every denomination that's ordained women has within a generation or two gone liberal on a host of other issues from creation right on up to homosexuality. So that's what we pick up this morning. Before we move forward, any questions or comments? That was a brief review. Well, the intense push for empathy in our structures, in our institutions, in our organization is nearly omnipresent. It's in the church. It's in the broader culture. It's in politics. It's everywhere. And frankly, it's wreaking havoc at every level. And underneath all the woke nonsense and various forms of critical theory is toxic female empathy that's facilitated a culture of victimhood. You see, with female norms becoming the norm, the social virtues that are magnified are things like inclusion, supportiveness, empathy, care, equality. And what results is a culture that infantilizes perceived victim groups. So women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and any other group that's described as marginalized are no longer treated like moral beings who are responsible for their own actions. They're treated like children in need of maternal care. I printed out a super insightful quote from Dr. Alistair Roberts that ties some of this together. Through his research on the subject of social justice warriors, Jordan Peterson has identified that it is specifically related to a maternal instinct. The political landscape is being viewed through the lens of a hyper-concerned mother for her infant. When persons from marginalized groups enter into the realm of political or academic discourse, they must be protected at all costs. Just as a kid that bursts into tears and runs to their mother at the slightest provocation can then use parental sanctions to empower them against others, so the feminist elevation of the rhetoric and ideology of victimhood serves to increase their social leverage. Exaggerated vulnerability can be exploited as a means to gain power. The term cry-bully has been coined to describe such weaponized victimhood and vulnerability. The more that we privilege dependency and reliance upon third parties to intervene, the more we'll start to resemble infants and the more those parties will adopt a smothering hyper-maternalism. So you see this smothering empathy, it's rampant in our society. And in an empathetic society, victimhood confers invulnerability. Victims have to be affirmed and validated. They can't be questioned, they can't be challenged, lest in some way they might be re-traumatized. And so they're basically resolved of all responsibility for their actions. And when they engage in bad behavior, the collective mothers in our society say, oh, he's truly a good boy. He would never do anything that bad. You just don't understand him. We saw this after the George Floyd riots, didn't we? According to the media, the rioters were on the side of the victim, therefore everything they did was for a good cause, and therefore their actions are excused. It's the same mindset of a mother who would make the mistake of saying, my child would never do that bad thing. And we see this all over progressive cities. If a criminal belongs to a so-called oppressed group, then there's little interest in prosecuting them. And if they do prosecute them, they want the punishment to be ridiculously lenient. We also see this in the way that Western nations can't deal wisely any longer with immigration. That motherly impact and influence has paralyzed nations through toxic empathy. Compassion for refugees and kids in cages, that rhetoric gets weaponized. And so the only result is to open our borders so that we can be invaded by millions of able-bodied young men. But Dr. Rigney makes the point that nowhere is feminine maternal empathy more evident than in the various controversies that have to do with transgenderism. Again, the reason mentally deranged men are allowed to compete in sports or shower in a girl's locker room is because women, who are leaders in our culture, have decided to let them. Childless women are looking for an outlet for their maternal instincts, and they view trans people as hyper-vulnerable. And so when women see someone presenting themselves as a victim, they don't want to say no, even if that means letting Guido shower with the girls. You see, a woman might reject a husband, but her desire for provision and protection, they don't go away. It remains, but she seeks those things in big government or big business. And if a woman refuses to marry and have children, her desire to nurture and care for others doesn't disappear. It's still there, there. And when feminine empathy gets untethered from its proper objects, namely her own husband, family, and children, her impulse to nurture often gets twisted and she applies it to whoever is currently described as a victim. Mama must kiss the boo-boo, so to speak. I wonder if there's a layer of guilt there as well, since so many mothers are killing their actual children. Not only are they childless, but they feel a level of guilt from their past actions. I think that's a part of it for sure. It's really sad. I just listened to a talk about two weeks ago. A woman in New York, a publisher, really accomplished, you know. And she's in her 60s, and she said, I was sold a bill of goods. I was told that I should seek to have my career, and then I could have a family later. But when later came, it was too late. And now, she actually said, I resent not having those things. And again, her resentment is then unleashed onto the rest of society if she's in a prominent place. Any other thoughts, questions, comments before we move forward? This is an important thing to be able to recognize, that motherly dimension. Everybody tracking with me there pretty much? All right, so how do we respond to this? Well, one very popular but very ill-advised way is to fight feminine fire with feminine fire. So here's what that looks like. If a female teacher is leading God's people astray, we'll find a faithful female Bible teacher to correct her. If a deranged man wants to use a woman's restroom, we'll have a female politician lead the charge to protect women's spaces. But here's the problem, and I'm quoting Rigney at this point, outsourcing the fight against she-wolves and demented men to conservative shepherdesses and female magistrates is itself a subtle form of capitulation. Faithful women in the church deserve faithful men to guard and protect the flock, and they ought not to be put in a position where they have to do what men are called to do. Also, many of the female politicians who are now resisting the kind of trans insanity made their name by breaking glass ceilings, by invading traditionally male spaces like the military, and by championing things like same-sex marriage. And what they basically want to do is turn back the clock to an earlier stage of feminist rebellion, not to a biblical order of maleness and femaleness. On top of that, there's never going to be enough godly women to meet that challenge because the vast majority of faithful women are busy being faithful at the post God's put them at. That is, raising their children, managing their homes, serving God and his people in a whole host of ways that are proper and fitting. Everybody with me so far? So fighting feminine fire with feminine fire is out, which by the way, you can push back on that if you want. The fighting feminine fire with feminine fire. This is such a popular thing on the right right now. I feel like it's an important aspect to include that because I feel especially like secular feminist women like A man could tell them something that's true all day long, but their biases might keep them from hearing. So I feel like there is a space where faithful women can speak truth into those women maybe more effectively, but I think that the most important thing and most effective thing overall for the order of society is for the men to step up and Like where I think the woman influence has more impact might be more on like an interpersonal one-on-one level, whereas like societal order, yeah, you need the men to do it. And to your point, Elizabeth, we can talk a little bit more about this in a few minutes, but what I'm describing, and I know this is true of Dr. Rigney, is not somehow where women are excluded from participating. They're excluded from being at this role where they're governing society and being leaders where God's not appointed or equipped them to be leaders. So, for example, on a local level, and again I'm going to use an illustration later and this question might come up. Elders are often going to consult with their wives, and you would be a fool if you didn't listen to what your wives say. Because we need that empathetic perspective. We need the woman's perspective, right? But that's not the same thing as letting that perspective govern over truth and doctrinal purity and those sorts of things. You'll get another example that may tie into what Elizabeth is saying, may. Rosario Butterfield. She's maybe the number one spokesman opposed to homosexual lesbian rights. Think of the background she had. Again, there's no question that God uses women in glorious ways. It's just, again, if you remember the stats we looked at last week, every major institution from academia to medicine to law to art to publishing, all of those industries have a majority of women in leadership positions. That means as a culture, we're in an uncharted territory. There has never been a time in human history, in any culture, ever, anywhere, where women ruled and basically controlled all the levers of power the way they do today. I was just listening to a guy talking about this whole issue and he made a good point. He's like the concept of having a Deborah in society is a legitimate biblical concept. Like there are Deborahs out there, but when all you have are Deborahs and no men at all, then you don't actually have any Deborahs. Well, and what did Deborah say? She said, dude, you get out there and fight. He goes, well, I'll fight if you'll come with me. But she was trying to force Barak to do the manly thing. And we don't want to be too hard on Barak because he's included in Hebrews 11. And she isn't, interestingly enough. So anyway. So anyway, if fighting with feminine fire is not a primary strategy, how do we respond to all this knowledge? First, we need to know where these battles are being fought in our immediate circles, in our churches, our denominations. Some denominations are still battling over whether women should be ordained pastors. Those debates are going on fiercely in the Anglican Church and even in Southern Baptists. That's not the exact fight in the PCA. It's a little more, oh, grab your Bible. You need a hand? I was going to say, the idea of women overtly being ordained to the office of the pastorate is not something that's explicit in the PCA. Our issues are a little more nuanced than that. What you're likely to find in the PCA are church websites that'll list their elders and then right alongside them there'll be shepherdesses without any distinction, or they'll list their deacons and beside them will be a list of their deaconesses, right? There's a group of men who recently scoured websites to see how prevalent this is. By the way, it's from a group called Save the PCA. Some of you might be interested to know one of the guys who started that was Michael Foster. Save the PC. Anyway, it should be said that only about 78% of the churches had websites that contained the information that would be helpful. So the results aren't perfect. But out of 1855 churches, about 330 list deaconesses. And again, here's the thing, that's a contradiction. to our book of church order. That is not what we ascribe to. And this is why this is such a big issue. The things I'm describing are things that men took an oath before God that they would hold to, and now they're doing something else, right? That's the level of the lack of integrity that you see in them. There were about 35 churches that have shepherdesses And then there are various other ways. You can see from that little chart I provided you where basically women are being snuck into church leadership roles from different perspectives. From my point of view, the problem isn't really widespread, but it will be if we don't crush it right now. So what we need are men in these presbyteries who will stand up and call their brothers to be faithful to our standards, faithful to the vows they made, or suggest they move on to an egalitarian denomination. By the way, we didn't have any of those shepherdesses churches in our presbytery, in our local bodies. Anyway, well Dr. Rigney said, you know you have a problem when there's this repeated pattern. After an elder meeting where a difficult decision gets made, and it draws clear lines. The elders will go home, they'll talk to their wives, and the emails and texts will start flying. Brothers, I've been praying about this, and I think we need to reconsider our decision. That's what I was talking about. Again, I want to reiterate what I said a moment ago in response to Elizabeth's comments. Of course we have to listen to our wives. Of course we need that perspective. What Dr. Rigney is talking about is we got our wife's perspective, and that carries the day on any big decision. And what's behind that is will this decision hurt somebody else's feelings? And that's a no-no. Again, that's why men are called to be in that position, and generally women are not. Everybody with me? Here's what's at stake. conservative churches and denominations who are allowing this little sort of camel nose under the tent initial move toward egalitarian. They are on the slippery slope that all the mainline denominations have slid down. Dr. Rigney says this is what it looks like. It's a one-way train driven by a feminist engine with four stops. Stop one is I'm not that kind of complementarian. Does everybody know what a complementarian is? Good. Stop two, I'm neither complementarian nor egalitarian. Stop three, I'm egalitarian. Stop four, sodomy is cool. And the move from egalitarianism to affirming homosexuality isn't so much a slippery slope as it is just what cancer does when it's left untreated. It spreads and it kills. And the thing we need to do, and this is crucial, Having recognized where the rod is, we've got to dig deep into God's revelation, both in scripture and in nature. For some 40 years, evangelicals have used the term complementarian to refer to the biblical teaching of male headship, and much of that's been very helpful and very useful in cultural engagement. But there are serious fault lines in the complementarian camp. We actually talked about this pretty extensively last year in Sunday school. Some people want to apply male and female differences broadly across society and the church. Others want to restrict those differences to a very narrow sphere, basically just the home and the pulpit. But Dr. Rigney suggests there's a more fundamental division that we need to recognize. And let me suggest that the key division between what we might call natural complementarianism or patriarchy and ideological complementarianism. Now let me work that out. By natural complementarianism or patriarchy, we're saying that the biblical restriction of the ministerial office to qualified men isn't arbitrary. It flows naturally from God's design in creation. In other words, God's commands flow from the way He made the world. He doesn't give us arbitrary rules imposed on a blank slate. His command fits with the way He designed things to work. He's given men certain gifts, certain abilities, and they are commanded to lead. Now that's patriarchy. On the other hand, ideological complementarianism, excuse me, that's a mouthful, regards the biblical commands about male leadership as arbitrary, kind of an arbitrary law just sort of overlaid on a neutral nature. Because at their core, men and women are basically the same. That's what they would argue. And therefore, they're essentially interchangeable. And so the roles that God assigns to men and women, they're essentially arbitrary. God has said men are the heads of homes, and what that means is that in certain circumstances, men get the tie-breaking vote. And that's about the extent of male headship in most homes. And of course, God's assigned men to be elders, which has come to mean that in many conservative churches, they serve the congregation by doing exactly what the congregation wants them to do. So when an ideological complementarian reads verses about male headship, it has almost nothing to do with the nature or the way God's created us. They simply see male headship as the way God's arranged things. It's not rooted in created nature and reality. It's really just kind of arbitrary. Again, we spent some time talking about this last week. Everybody sticking with me so far? Everybody getting this? You see, at the end of the day, people who are ideologically complementarian are basically egalitarian at heart because they don't believe that as created beings, we're fundamentally different, right? They hold on to their complementarianism because there are a handful of verses in Paul's letter that they can't quite get around. But they're in the process of figuring out how to rationalize and reinterpret some of those passages. Again, we spent a number, three or four weeks last week dealing with some of those objections. But one of the objections that's very prominent is the idea that the Bible's very clear, women can't serve as elders, but it doesn't mean they can't be pastors. Elders is an office, pastor is not. Now again, if you want me to review that, I will, but that's just a bunch of exegetical mumbo jumbo, and it's wrong at every single level. And to give you a perspective, the Bible uses three words, three Greek words for leaders, prasbuteros, episkopos, and poimei. Poimei is shepherd, episkopos is the one that's usually translated as bishop, and Presbyteros is elder, and those words are used interchangeable for the same office, right? Again, it's not difficult exegesis unless you're trying to twist the scripture to be egalitarian. It really is that simple. So the truth is those who are doing this, they're about to arrive at train stop three. I'm an egalitarian. They just don't want to admit it. So given this difference, the starting point for God's people has to be an unashamed embrace of reality. We've got to love God and the way he's made the world, not the way progressives envision it. You see, that's where we get back to that issue of the progressive gaze, G-A-Z-E. I spelt that out because when Brother Jeff, do you mind if I tell this? When Brother Jeff posted Progressive Gaze, those lessons, when he posted it on Facebook, he put it Progressive Gaze, G-A-Y-S, which I guess that's probably true, but it was Progressive Gaze. But that's the idea, right? The church has bought into the mindset that we should see the world the way Progressive tell us it is. And instead, we need to see the world as God says it is, because that's reality. And what that means is happily and without embarrassment, embracing the reality that men and women are wonderfully different and complementary, and that these differences are relevant in all areas of life, all areas of life, not just in the home and church, but everywhere. It means celebrating the biblical teaching that accounts for and clarifies the reality of what it means to be godly men and women. Again, to be sure, we're equally made in God's image. Nobody's disputing that, but men are the head and women are the glory, right? 1 Corinthians 11. And from this happy embrace of reality, we can begin to push back the feminist infection that's poisoned so many of our churches. And we can begin to command what's good and what's right and what's true. We can start to promote what real masculinity and real femininity looks like to a rebellious and confused world. And as I said, my big concern is how churches have been feminized, but there's a smaller concern that's emerging. And that is young men who don't have reasonable models of masculinity and are moving into some really dangerous, I'm going to call hyper-masculine, I don't want to even say hyper-masculine, just obnoxious territories, right? You know, where it's almost as though, well, I don't want to be mealy-mouthed, therefore I'm going to be nasty. And no, no, no. The first mark of masculinity is always godliness. If you miss that, everything else is for naught. And what this is going to require is steady men, sober-minded leaders who possess a kind of clarity of mind, stability of soul, and frankly, a readiness to act. Any questions, thoughts, comments? Rosara Butterfield's name came up a little bit ago, and I think it's very interesting because when she first came out, everybody was inviting her to speak. And now, you don't hear her much anymore. And it's just because of her message. I think that's ultimately what it is, quite frankly. Yeah, it has definitely changed. People who really extolled her 10 years ago don't want anything to do with her now. Were you going to say something less? That could almost be writ large over the study, really, you know? Anything else? Can you define Complementarianism again? Again, Complementarianism is a word that goes back, I believe, to the mid-late 1980s. There was a group, it was Wayne Grudem and John Piper and a couple other prominent people of the time, I don't recall the name. Ligon Duncan was on the initial board, he's been part of it, and their goal was to establish the appropriate biblical parameters for men and women. And again, they started with good intentions, good motives, did a lot of good work. The language of complementarian was meant to, again, they didn't, you know what, they wanted to push back. They said, we can't use the word patriarchy because it's too offensive. That's really the mistake they made because patriarchy simply means father ruled. Right? I mean, and the fathers in the Bible are called patriarchs. So it was, that was a fundamental mistake, right? Not using biblical language because it'll be offensive to basically feminists, you know, but having said that, uh, complimentary was that the language they used to say, that's how men and women function. They're complimentary to one another. They fit like hand and glove. And again, that's a, that's good language. Generally, you know, it's, it's proper though, but, But again, as I said, with times past, some of the flaws in their procedures have become apparent. And primarily, it is the fact that they see the roles. as a sign, it'd be like if I say, okay, you pick up the chairs today, you get the coffee, Lisa, you do this, doesn't really matter who you are, you just have a specific task, because I gave it to you. And they miss the fact that no, men were created to do certain things and women were created to do certain things. And so that's really the fundamental flaw. And that's become pretty apparent in the last seven, eight years. When Ligon Duncan, John Piper, and Wayne Grudel, when they were, when they started the group for complementarianism, were they intentionally trying to shift the language from patriarchy to complementarianism? Yes. Yes. And again, I think, I know if you talk to them, I've actually read, their motives were they wanted to choose language that they thought could be better defended in the public square. Hey, Gabe Askey wondered if their wives told him that. Anyway, no. That was a good one, Gabe. Anyway, any other questions? Well, Dr. Rigney actually wraps up that section by speaking directly to men and what it looks like to take the mantle of leadership. And he acknowledged that he acknowledges something that I think is very helpful. And that is this isn't the fight that most men want, whether they're You're talking about husbands, or business leaders, or pastors, or elders. It's not the fight most of us want to be engaged in. I would much rather be wrangling with a Roman Catholic and their grievous errors on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, or how they get the sacraments wrong, or I'd rather deal with the Arminianism of the Methodists. I'd rather deal with something at a theological level. I'd be more comfortable there. But the pressing issues of our day aren't as much theological as they are anthropological. That is, what does it mean to be a human? So, irrespective of the kind of fights we might like to be engaged in, that's the kind of fight we have. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? That's what we have. Go ahead. Well, that's what Jude said. Jude started off his letter, I want to tell you about this, but instead... You know what? I'd really like to speak to you about our common salvation, right? But I've got to tell you about wolves. I've got to tell you about people who are sneaking in unaware, you know? The point is, the point he's making is you really only have two choices. You can either engage in the fight or you can hide from it. but it is the fight of the day. And those who, he's very candid, those who successfully and effectively push back against the kind of cancer of radical feminism that's made headways into the church, they're almost certainly going to be called abusers or abuse enablers. And that's because those labels still have substantial social leverage. Nobody wants to be called racist and misogynist. Those aren't really big terms anymore. But call somebody an abuser or an abuse enabler, that still works. Likely people will insist that you can't fight feminism and protect the vulnerable at the same time, but that's just not true. That's what we have to do as men. We have to be able to do both of these things. We have to resist toxic empathy, and we have to protect the weak for actual predators, right? And what this means is you can't uncritically accept every accusation you hear is true, but as leaders, whenever you hear an accusation of potential abuse, you have to take it seriously. And when horrific things happen, and they do happen in a fallen world, Godly men have to act decisively, again, whether it's in the home or the church. And we have to have real compassion for victims. Call cops when necessary. Purge the evil from your midst. Lay holy hands on the person if you have. No, I'm just kidding about that. And in the meantime, we need to be teaching the church and in our homes real truth about manhood and womanhood. We need to teach those things throughout our circle of influence, how to cheerfully endure false accusations and slander. We need to teach young men from the youngest and earliest ages what it looks like to honor and esteem women. as a weaker vessel. And we need to teach our young women from the earliest ages to resist the manipulations of flatterers, whether it's men who want to seduce them or women who want to absolve them of all moral agency and tell them they're victims. We need to teach our men and women to hold the line against these things from the earliest age. I know it would be easier to think, yes, but my little ones are so young at this point. Let me assure you, the world does not wait until they get to 12 to teach them these things. And so we need to be promoting the true biblical teaching on masculinity and femininity. And we need to get that from the place where we know it intellectually to a place where it's in our bones. And it's a conviction that we're not going to compromise on. And any questions or thoughts? I might wrap up a little early, it looks like. The graph you had, none of those were ordained to our office, correct, in the PCA? Yes. Well, some of the deaconesses were actually ordained and some were commissioned. And again, they do all sorts of things that are truly despicable. Like, there are large churches, and by large I mean churches that have over three or four hundred people, that don't have a diaconate. Right? Because if they don't have a diaconate, they can just call this group of men and women the Mercy Ministry Team. You see? They're getting around it that way. You know where I come down. I'm not going to lie. I mean, is there a place that we, as session members, How do we use women in the role that they're God-given balance, so to speak, without having to make an office for them? You know what I'm saying? First, again, I'll use the office of deacon. Our Book of Church Order is crystal, crystal clear that the office of deacon belongs exclusively men. But the Session, I can't remember the exact language, but this is what it teaches in our Book of Church Order, the Session can appoint women to function in a mercy ministry under the authority of the Session, particularly to deal with cares and issues that, to Elizabeth's point, to cares and issues that might deal with women. So for example, let's put some meat on the bone. Let's imagine there's a situation where in our circle there's a woman who is sexually abused. We're gonna be praying for her, we're gonna seek to counsel her, but she's gonna also need the impact and influence and communication of a godly woman where she can speak about things in a way that's more candid than she could with a man. So there's clearly places for that in our polity, in our church politics, right? And we can do that. And again, he's not suggesting we do otherwise. We want to do those things. We want to use godly women with all their wonderful gifts. Again, in that situation, their empathy is going to be profoundly blessed, right? Because I don't have that kind of empathy. I wish I did sometimes. But I don't have it. But many women do. And of course you want to use that. But that can't be then used. This is where that would go bad. Therefore, we're going to create a policy that's not biblical. You see? That's what we're trying to balance against. But we don't have to make an office for them, even if it's not an ordained office. No. Yeah, well, that's the point. And definitely not an ordained officer. So that's really the issue. And again, the problem with these things is that they're not simply trying to use women. They're trying to smuggle women into those roles that they don't belong. That's the problem. You were going to say something? Yeah, it kind of goes along with Paul's point of not needing an office for it. If the church is practicing biblical hospitality and all the families are interacting with each other well and you have a strong body, strong relationships between everybody, a lot of these issues can be taken care of. You don't need to try to all of a sudden create this office for a woman to be part of a program to go in and do this stuff. Because I would think a lot of the, I mean, you know, the issue you're talking about, a woman has been sexually abused. If you have a strong body where that woman is connected with other older, wiser women who maybe have gone through the same thing, who have a lot of life experience, a lot of that's going to be taken care of. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Interesting enough, we'll talk about this next week in our study in Hebrews. But everybody remember the movie, everybody see the movie Crocodile Dundee? Anybody familiar with that movie? Okay. It's one of those older movies. Never mind. I was going to use it as an illustration, but it'll just go whoosh if you haven't seen the movie. Well, there's a scene where he's this backwoods Australian guy, right? And he's in New York City, because he's this famous crocodile hunter. And he's at this famous gala. And he hears this woman talking about seeing a therapist. And he asks his friend, what's a therapist? He goes, oh, it's who you go and you talk to when you have a problem. And he said, doesn't she have any mates, friends, right? Doesn't she have any friends, right? That was very profound, right, because that's what the church ought to be. You ought not to need professional, not to say there aren't places for professional counseling, but that ought not to be the first line of defense. We are called to be the body of Christ. Do I have to take that from you? Okay, I need, Gabe's gonna need some masculinity training when it comes to coffee cups. Anything else? I hope you know the reason why I asked that because I want the women in this congregation to know how important they are and that there will come a time as a session member we will come to them and need their help. I'm articulating that clearly. Not only can we do that, there are certain situations where we should do that. Again, sort of building on all the things we've learned, though, one of the problems that we've had is once you go and you start dealing with that, issues can often take on a life of their own, and then a situation starts to create policy out of empathy that's not necessarily grounded in truth or what's best for the body as a whole, if that makes sense. You know, I can't even tell, hundreds of times I've said something and my wife will say to me or somebody else will say something and I'll just go in one ear and out the other and she'll say, I think you better talk some more here. There's something going on there. And I just miss it, right? And so yeah, those things are invaluable. I just want everybody here to know that yes, we as session members talk to our wives. There are certain things within a session meeting we do not share with the others. to learn how to better identify what is appropriate and godly compassion, and we'll look more specifically at that next week. Just pray, Lord, that you help us to see some of the pitfalls that have taken root in Christ's precious church, and help us to push back against them. Now as we gather, O God, to worship you, we pray that you will grab our hearts by the Holy Spirit and give us a fresh zeal and joy that we're the people of God and we have this great high purpose to worship you. So bless our time together in worship now we ask in Jesus name.