Category: Parenting

Welcome to another “potpourri” edition of The Mailbag, where I give short(er) answers to several questions rather than a long answer to one question.

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Our women’s ministry team recently asked all of us Bible study teachers to promote the study they have chosen, and I personally recommended it to the women in my class. I told them “I don’t know anything about the author and haven’t read the study, but I trust the women’s ministry team and recommend you participate.” That afternoon I began researching her and discovered she was a woman pastor. I immediately contacted the women’s coordinator and shared my concerns.

I feel TERRIBLE that I have recommended a woman whose life choices make her a stumbling block to the gals I dearly love and have taught for years. My first instinct is to send my students only an email rescinding my recommendation and warning them that the author routinely preaches in her local church. I am torn between protecting them from a very beguiling threat and the implications a warning has for exposing the women’s ministry team. LESSON LEARNED for future recommendations, but for now, what is my Biblical obligation/priority?

That’s a difficult spot to be in. I’ve been there myself, having passed along a recommendation from someone I thought was discerning and trustworthy, only to find out later that she was not.

Here’s what I would suggest:

• If you haven’t already, get alone with the Lord in prayer and repent of your carelessness. There is grace, mercy, and forgiveness awaiting you.
  
  
• Write out a carefully, kindly, and wisely worded email to your class apologizing for your carelessness and explaining why you need to rescind your recommendation. Support everything you say with Scripture. (If you think it would be helpful, you may wish to include a link to this article of mine.) Don’t hit “send” yet.
  
  
• Talk to your pastor before you do anything else. Explain the situation, plead with him to cancel the study, tell him (don’t ask him) your conscience demands that you send an email to your class rescinding your recommendation of the study, and offer to show it to him if he’d like to see it.
  
  
• I pray your pastor will cancel the study. I really do. That will take the pressure off of you. You will still need to apologize to your class and explain why you agree with the pastor’s decision to cancel the study. Unfortunately, in situations like this, the pastor almost always backs up the study and the women’s director, not the discerning Christian who comes to him with concerns.
  
  
• If your pastor affirms the study and the women’s ministry leader, express your disappointment calmly and politely, and reiterate that you must still send the email. Go to the women’s ministry leader, and as a gesture of courtesy, explain that you’ll be sending an email to your class rescinding your recommendation. Then, send the email.
  
  
• Immediately begin looking for a new, doctrinally sound church. Women who are “pastors” and/or preach to men are false teachers. They preach with their behavior, “I don’t like this command of Scripture, so I’m not going to obey it. If there’s a command of Scripture you don’t like, you don’t have to obey it either.”. If your pastor is so doctrinally ignorant or unsound that he affirms this sin and false teaching, you don’t need to be sitting under his teaching and leadership.

What are the Scripture verses that back up the teachings that women were at the last supper? I know that this is something I’ve heard before, yet now my grandson is asking me about it because that’s what he learned in school.

There aren’t any. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone claim that any person – man or woman – other than Jesus and the twelve disciples were in attendance at the Last Supper.

• The Matthew account says Jesus “reclined at table with the twelve.”
• The Mark account says Jesus “came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating…”
• The Luke account says Jesus “reclined at table, and the apostles with him.”
• The John account focuses more on Jesus’ teaching at and after the supper than the actual supper itself, but even John says, “During supper” (v.2) Jesus “began to wash the disciples’ feet…” (v.5)

When you consider all four of the gospel accounts together, there is absolutely no argument to be made that anyone was present at the Last Supper besides Jesus and the twelve. There were no women among the twelve. There were no women apostles. Therefore, no women were at the Last Supper.

I’m guessing what happened is that somebody – perhaps Catholicism, in order to elevate Mary, or perhaps feminists, in order to make Jesus seem like an egalitarian – took a mention of “disciples” (without “the twelve” in front of it) from one of these passages and decided that could mean any follower of Jesus he or she wanted it to mean (most likely Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Mary Magdalene).

If your grandson is asking questions like this, take him to Scripture and teach him how to be a good Berean. Show him how to look up the passages in question and compare what he’s being taught to what the Bible actually says.

And if you have a relationship with his parents that allows you to express your concerns about what he’s being taught at school, express them (kindly, yet seriously, taking care not to be overbearing). I shudder to think about all the unbiblical things that school is indoctrinating your grandson with that he’s not asking you about.

I am a Christian mom, and I rarely accept back talk from my son. I always call it out, and usually give him some kind of discipline, but it doesn’t seem to improve things. Is there a secret formula?😃

That’s something a lot of moms deal with, and I know it’s got to be frustrating. Good for you for looking for ways to make your discipline more effective!

If what you’re doing isn’t working, your discipline either isn’t severe enough or isn’t consistent enough, or both. Discipline has to hurt in order to be effective.

A good example of the importance of consistency is an experiment I learned about when I was a psychology major back in the Stone Age. We were studying conditioning (training a subject in a behavior), and a lot of the studies we looked at had to do with training rats to push a lever for a pellet of food. Some rats got a pellet every time they pushed the lever. Some never got a pellet. Some got a pellet sometimes. Those were the rats who pushed the lever the most because they never knew when they would be rewarded with food or “punished” with none.

It’s the same with inconsistent discipline. You’re actually increasing the undesired behavior by being inconsistent because your child never knows whether that bad behavior is going to be rewarded, ignored, or punished. This is also part of what Ephesians 6:4 is talking about when it says not to exasperate your children.

Especially with boys, Dad needs to be involved. Your son needs to know that if he doesn’t respond to your discipline, Dad is going to step in and take over. The two of you should sit down, talk this through, and put a plan in place for how to work this out in various situations.

Also helpful would be to find a couple in your church whose children are well behaved and respectful and ask them to disciple you and your husband in this area.

Get those things going, and you’ll see improvement.

If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.