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The Trinity DVD is officially released!

The Trinity DVD is officially released!

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The Trinity DVD is now in stock and available!  Orders can be placed on our web page for MM Outreach here for US orders or here for Canadian and overseas orders or the set is available through Amazon.com here.  Video review is available at the end of this post.

The Trinity: Eternity Past to Eternity Future
The Trinity Eternity Past to Eternity Future Explaining Truth Exposing Error

The debut of the 2 DVD set went over extremely well as two of the three sections in the DVD set were shown at a conference in Pennsylvania this past weekend.  Several of the apologists who attended the conference were surprised at the audio clips that are included in the DVDs of a popular Christian theologian who is teaching that Jesus is not to be prayed to because he not does have ultimate authority to hear and answer prayer.  His teaching that is being received into our seminaries and our churches makes Jesus unavailable for us to have a personal relationship with him since it is stated that Jesus is eternally subordinate in authority to the Father, making prayer useless unless it goes out only to the Father.  Many people commented that this information needs to be heard by pastors, theologians and lay people alike to call attention to the unbiblical teaching that has been coming into the church.

It is time that we stand up for the entire Trinity and give a sound biblical defense that deals with the attempts at downgrading Jesus Christ by appealing to his being sent by the Father, his submission as the human Son, and 1 Corinthians 15:28 the verse that many have appealed to, to claim that Jesus is lesser in authority than the Father for all of eternity.  These positions are soundly refuted in this DVD set and the eternity past to eternity future of the Trinity is biblically set forth as an eternal equality in authority seen in both the Old Testament revelation of the pre-incarnate Christ, as well as his eternal future in the eternality of the Godhead.

See an 8 minute compliation of several clips from this 2 DVD/3 section video at Youtube here.

Meet us in Pennsylvania

Meet us in Pennsylvania

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For anyone in the Pennsylvania area who would like to meet us in person and see the premiere of “The Trinity Eternity Past to Eternity Future Explaining Truth Exposing Error”, we will be in the New Ringgold, PA area at the Witnesses Now For Jesus Convention at the Blue Mountain Christian Retreat  October 10-12th, 2008.  DVD #1 of the 2 DVD set will be shown at 3 pm on Saturday, October 11th.  Information on the conference can be found at http://pfo.org/wnfj2008.htm The sessions are free.  If you would like to stay for the entire conference, call the retreat centre at the link above for accommodations or see the list of motels in the area at the above link.  The convention has great testimonies and teaching sessions and lots of time for fellowship with a really wonderful group of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian ministries.

The issue of the Trinity and how the eternal subordination of the Son has crept into the church since the 1970’s will be a hot topic at the convention and if you are also interested in this issue, please feel free to come by and introduce yourself to us.  We will be hosting a book table at the conference and will make ourselves available for discussion and questions before and after the sessions.

The unorthodox view of the Trinity related to women in ministry

The unorthodox view of the Trinity related to women in ministry

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Wade Burleson has blogged on the Trinity and the unorthodox trend that has come into the church that teaches an eternally subordinated Son of God in the Trinity.

Wade writes:

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is composed of many Southern Baptists who are introducing to evangelicalism a novel, if not peculiar, view of Christ which has more in common with Arianism than the historic, orthodox view of Christ’s person. The theologians and teachers who write for the CBMW are teaching what they call “the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father” as a basis for their hierarchal view that the female is to be subordinate to the male. Women’s subordination to man, according to the teachings of CBMW, is not a consequence of sin or a reflection of cultural values, but is built upon the heirachical order God established before the fall as a reflection of the Trinity.

This view of the Trinity has been used by some complementarians who have a lot of sway in Southern Baptist circles to support the functional subordination of women.  I would recommend that you read what Wade has written and then have a read through the comments on his blog as well.  It is a frightening thing to me to see the spread of this unorthodox doctrine and how many have accepted it as gospel truth.

It also comes at a very timely place for us as we are just getting ready to release our new 2 DVD set called “The Trinity: Eternity Past to Eternity Future, Explaining Truth & Exposing Error”

The DVD will be availabe by mid October at http://mmoutreach.org/ or from Amazon.com.

(October 2008 update:  The DVD is now available and a preview is available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLe-qF2nptA.)

The Trinity DVD is done!

The Trinity DVD is done!

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Well, it is finally done.

The Trinity: Eternity Past to Eternity Future
The Trinity: Eternity Past to Eternity Future

The Trinity Eternity Past to Eternity Future, Explaining Truth & Exposing Error   © 2008 MM Outreach Inc

The 2 DVD set with 3 sections dealing with the doctrine of the Trinity, the biblical support for the equality of the Word of God in eternity past, and the biblical position on the authority of Jesus Christ and eternity future, does not mention the women’s issue at all, but the teaching of hierarchists that use the subordination of Jesus to justify the subordination of women is soundly dealt with.

Our new DVD will be on its way to the duplicators in just a couple of days.  Official release date should be by mid October at the latest.  There are some loose ends that need to be cleaned up on Monday and I do need to view it one more time to make sure that all is in place as the computer version shows, but my long hours of hard work have come to an end.

Can we say yippee yay?

Also for those of you who have supported MM Outreach in the transition to a US based corporation, will now be able to get a tax receipt for your donations as we are now officially a non-profit organization.

Can we say, wow isn’t the Lord good?

So many good things happening and we continue to marvel at the blessings that the Lord Jesus has given us!

Taking a break

Taking a break

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I will be taking a break for some rest and relaxation for the next two weeks. If I find myself near a computer I may post some articles if I find the time and motivation 🙂

I am also at the stage of fixing some minor glitches on the Trinity DVD #1 and this means that so far I have been able to keep on track with the scheduled completion of the 2 DVD series in September. I am pleased with the work so far and between the 2 different trains of thought on the DVDs, I think there will be a lot of material that will help people not only to get a handle on what the Trinity is and what it isn’t, but also to give people ammunition to refute the hierarchy movement that has downgraded Jesus to the God who had to have permission to create the universe because he does not have ultimate authority. Stay tuned for more information later.

Trinity DVD update

Trinity DVD update

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For those of you who are interested, we have finished filming our Trinity DVD and I am in the process of setting up the editing studio.  This may keep me off line for a day or two.  The editing will continue until about September when it goes for duplication.  The DVD is copyright 2008 and is called:

The Trinity eternity past to eternity future:  explaining truth, exposing error

This will be a 2 DVD set with my script as the 2nd DVD exposing the errors of the eternal functional subordination of the Son.  There are quite a few audio bytes in the DVD that should be quite surprising to many concerning what is now being taught as historic Trinitarian doctrine.

Hierarchical teaching influences the doctrine of the Trinity

Hierarchical teaching influences the doctrine of the Trinity

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One of the ways that hierarchical teaching has influenced the church since the 1970’s is in the area of the doctrine of the Trinity. In hierarchical teaching, the Trinity is no longer three functionally equal persons who share the same nature. Instead Jesus and the Holy Spirit become functionally subordinate to the point that Jesus no longer has a will that is exercised. Instead of a functional equality with the Father, it is now claimed by some hierarchists that Jesus as the pre-incarnate Son of God had to have permission to create the world since the authority even for creation rested on the Father alone. It is also claimed that the Jesus is so unequal in authority with the Father that we are not biblically allowed to pray to Jesus or have intimate communication with him. These claims more closely resemble the teaching of some well-known cults than they do of historic Christianity.

Will the church stand back and allow the Trinity to be downgraded so that the persons of the Trinity are no longer equal in authority, in their will or their work? We are now seeing a ground swell of opposition to the hierarchical teaching that tries to equate women’s subordination with an re-invented eternal subordination within the Trinity (this is not the first time in church history that the issue of subordinationism has reared its ugly head). Our new DVD on the Trinity is just getting ready for filming in early May 2008 and the second DVD in this 2 DVD set will focus on a refutation of the hierarchical distortion of the Trinity. Although the subordination of women will not be mentioned in the DVD, the foundation of the modern subordination movement that bases the subordination of women on the supposed eternal subordination of Christ in the Trinity, will be thoroughly refuted. There will also be many audio clips from noted hierarchical teachers such as Bruce Ware that documents the faulty logic used to downgrade Jesus to a lesser authority than the Father (the same logic they use to downgrade women as under the authority of all men).

Others who are bringing to light the connection between the hierarchical movement and the subordination of the Son are doing a good job at drawing our attention to the attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity from within our Christian churches most notably from within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Be sure to read Wade Burleson’s blog post and Dr. Cynthia Kunsman’s post discussing the censorship that she has experienced by merely talking about patriarchy and views espoused by hierarchists such as Bruce Ware and CBMW.

We believe that our new DVD will bring to light evidence of the tampering of the Trinity by modern Evangelicals that may shock a lot of people. One thing that I have found most disturbing is that in the written material that I have read from Dr. Bruce Ware as well as in all of the lectures that I listened to by Ware on this subject, he never fails to connect the Trinity to the women’s issue and the subordination of women. This is extremely troubling to me that he would be so passionate to limit the full usage of women’s gifts in the church that he has become passionate in the last dozen or so years to make the Trinity an issue of eternal subordination. I do want to point out that in email correspondence with me Ware has denied that he sees Jesus as less than equal with the Father in function because he sees women also in the same lower “role”. However his inability to even discuss the Trinity without bringing the women’s issue into play makes his denial very suspect. Ware simply sees the two issues so intimately connected that he cannot discuss the Trinity without making application to the “glorious” pattern of male authority over women which is a reflection of the Trinity. I related to Bruce Ware that whether women are or are not subordinated to men does not reflect on the full equality of the Son. Ware does not see it this way. He has been one of several who have dedicated themselves to teaching the eternal subordination of the pre-incarnate Christ. This is not good nor is it right.

It is about time that we set up a flag in the ground and a line in the sand and say “No more!” We will fight for the truth and expose the error. No longer should we stand by to see Jesus dishonored by those who wish to remove his full and equal function as Deity.

The Bayly brothers and the Trinity

The Bayly brothers and the Trinity

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Awhile back I was asked to consider posting a comment on a very strong complementarian blog that is known to be rather unloving towards egalitarians. This particular blog, I found, was run by two pastors of a Presbyterian church who appear to think that egalitarians do not have the right Jesus or the right gospel and they have taken it upon themselves to “rip” at the sheep who do not belong to their own complementarian flock. Since there is only one good shepherd and he is the shepherd and master of the entire flock, I wondered how Jesus feels about under-shepherds who mistreat the sheep.

I was quite shocked to see how a fine Greek scholar (Suzanne McCarthy) was treated on their blog not only because they did not have an answer to her explanation of the Greek from the original Greek manuscripts, but also because they told her as a woman that she was to be quiet. Apparently they didn’t have an answer either to what I said about the Trinity because they shut down the comments within a short time of my posting my comments and recommended that a woman should do a Titus 2 work in order to help me to understand the Trinity since I apparently didn’t know a thing about the Trinity. You can read the original post of the Bayly brothers here.

Since I am in the research and writing process of our newest DVD on the Trinity and a part of the DVD will deal with the errors of the complementarian position which teaches that Jesus is eternally subordinated in role, in will, in authority underneath the Father, I am interested in how I will be corrected by one of the women followers of the Bayly brothers. Kamilla is willing to do this “correction” and I am offering this post for our discussions. This public forum is for two reasons. First of all a public discussion is always best to create a permanent record of the argument and so all can see the attitude that comes through. We are all encouraged by Paul to be gentle and respectful so that all can judge for themselves the argument without any quarreling or disrespect. Paul instructed Timothy:

2 Timothy 2:24 The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,

2 Timothy 2:25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth

The second reason is that I think we can all learn and participate in this discussion and since my time is limited because of the DVD project, I would love to welcome those who have things to say about the Trinity to be able to do so in a safe environment.

Since I greatly desire a respectful conversation and since I know most if not all of you who are regulars on my blog agree with me, I think we can welcome Kamilla as a complementarian sister and ask her to make her time here an exercise in grace a.k.a. 2 Timothy 2:24, 25. Everyone who is interested in this kind of discussion is also welcome with these rules:

1. Correspond in the tone that you would if Jesus was sitting by your side and reading every word you are typing.

2. Remember that healthy discussion and passion is fine as long as there are no personal attacks and the language is respectful. Jesus said that they would know us by our love. (John 13:35) Let’s prove to the world which ones are really Jesus’ disciples in this forum.

3. Be patient and kind especially since my time is limited and I cannot always answer right away.

4. If you do not follow these rules, I reserve the right to edit out inappropriate content or remove your posts altogether. All new posters will have their first post held for pre-approval.

5. Women and men are both welcome to post and no one will be told to “be quiet” because of your gender.

Kamilla may not be on-line until Monday, however if any of you other dear souls have comments about why you believe that it is important to see Jesus as equal with the Father in will, in authority and in “role”, you are welcome to post. If Suzanne reads this post and comes to interact, I would like to just say “You go girl! You are welcome and respected here as a dear sister in Christ.”

Cheryl

Equal but different deteriorates to an unequal Trinity

Equal but different deteriorates to an unequal Trinity

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The term “equal but different” has become a catch phrase in marriage and “women in ministry” issues as it has replaced the pre-1970’s common view of the inferiority of women. In complementarian circles the thought is that women are equal in person but different in role. In the same way the Trinity is defined as equality in essence and status but different in roles. We are told that “different” is not “unequal”, it is just different. For example see this definition of the Trinity (below) that assures us that the status of men and women are equal just as the status of the persons of the Trinity are equal:

In the Trinity we see a pattern of relationships that shows us how it’s possible for equality of being to co-exist with diversity of function. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are equal in status but each has a different function.

But has this new definition of “equal but different” found a way to downgrade Jesus to an unequal place in the Trinity? Apparently so and some are actually using the very passage that affirms the equality of Jesus to make him unequal with God. Let’s see what the bible actually says. In Philippians 2:6 it says about Jesus –

(ALT) who existing in the nature of God, did not consider being equal to God something to be held onto,

In the Amplified Bible, the full meaning is retained:

Philippians 2:6 (AMP) Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained,

So Jesus had complete equality with God right from the beginning but he did not think that this equality was a thing to be retained, or held onto, but instead he emptied himself of his rights (to an equal position) so that he could become human. Verse 7 and 8 goes on to explain why Jesus did not retain or hold onto his equality with God:

Philippians 2:7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

Philippians 2:8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

In order for Jesus to be fully human and therefore able to die as a man, Jesus emptied himself of his equal position and the equal glory that he had with God so that he could become man. These verses have been used by apologists to prove to Jehovah’s Witnesses that Jesus did have full equality with God and it is only in his humanity that he is in a position of humility. Jesus voluntarily gave up his equal rights in order to live as a man in an unequal position. Yet these verses are now being used by those who claim to be evangelicals to prove that Jesus did not have equality with God to begin with.

In 2003 at the Evangelical Theological Society, Denny Burk gave a talk in which he set out to prove that in the Trinity, Jesus was not equal with God even though he was in the form of God.

Listen to these three audio files.

Denny Burk #1 Jesus did not want to become equal with God in every respect

Denny Burk #2 Jesus possessed the form of God but not equality with God

Denny Burk #3 In his pre-existent Trinitarian fellowship with the Father, Jesus decided not to go after equality but to go after incarnation

So Jesus did not have equality with the Father before the incarnation and he didn’t want to attain to an equality with the Father? This sounds to me like he is saying that Jesus is not equal but different with the Father, but unequal and different.

The complete audio file was downloaded a year ago from CBMW’s web site. CBMW’s web site has since taken off the 2003 ETS audio files, presumably because they don’t have any ETS audio files older than 2004. Denny Burk serves as the editor of CBMW’s The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

What we have is a full-blown demotion of the Word of God to a position of inequality in the Trinity.

Jesus unequal in prayer?

Jesus unequal in prayer?

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In my research for our new DVD on the Trinity I am amazed that the teaching that God has a hierarchy of “roles” has some convinced that it is the Father alone who hears and answers prayer. This is Bruce Ware’s position in his book on the Trinity called “Father, Son, & Holy Spirit”. In email dialog with Dr. Ware, he has made it clear to me that he does not believe that it is a sin to pray to Jesus; however even though it is not a sin, these types of prayers do not go anywhere because Jesus does not have the role of hearing and answering prayer. On page 152-3 of his book he defines the only way to come to God in prayer. One must go to the Father alone in prayer and come through the authority of Jesus. Without coming to the Father alone and praying “in Jesus name, Amen”, at the end of our prayers, (signifying that we are coming in the authority of Jesus) our prayers will not go to God and our words will be empty, vain words.

I asked Dr. Ware to explain why he thought that it was the Father’s “role” alone to hear and answer prayer when Jesus himself said that we can ask him anything in his name and he will do it:

John 14:14 “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

Indeed the Father is clearly glorified when we come to Jesus in prayer. Jesus also said:

John 14:13 “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

We also can see from scripture that Stephen prayed to Jesus when he was dying.

Acts 7:59 They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

Bruce’s answer to these scriptures was that the disciples had a close relationship with Jesus so their relationship with him could carry on after Jesus’ death but we are not to pray to Jesus. Really? Is it true that only the disciples could have an intimate relationship with Jesus? 1 Corinthians 1:2 refutes that by telling us that all the saints in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ:

1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

I asked Dr. Ware how he has a relationship with Jesus if he never talks to him. I did not get an answer from him.

The hierarchical movement has gone so far as to push unbiblical “roles” on the Godhead so now Jesus has been pushed out of a relationship with us with the claims that only the Father has the “role” of hearing and answering prayer. This is the same thing that the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. They too believe that only the Father hears and answers prayers and we are not to have a relationship with Jesus.

With the unbiblical hierarchical “role” distinctions that Bruce Ware imposes on the Trinity, Jesus is no longer equal in prayer with the Father. Bruce Ware takes away our ability to have a relationship with both the Father and the Son. A relationship with Jesus after his death now becomes something that was reserved for only a select few. But this is not the case in scripture. Jesus said:

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.

The Father and the Son are equal in prayer and we are encouraged to have a relationship with them both. They come together and they work together and no amount of maneuvering with the text will take away our ability to have a relationship with the Son.

The Trinity and the women's issue

The Trinity and the women's issue

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Just a quick update to let you all know that our ministry is working on a DVD project on the Trinity.  While it isn’t directly on the women’s issue, it will deal directly with the complementarian view of the Trinity and a biblical refutation of that view.

Until the DVD is done, I will be blogging less regularly so that I can keep my nose to the grindstone on this very important project.  I do hope to get my next post up regarding the issue of marriage next week, God willing.

Any thoughts about the Trinity and complementarianism?