The elder said to Gaius, "Beloved one [agapete], do not imitate the bad." Any exclusion of members of the Body from fellowshipping with the whole Body of Christ is bad. It is not perceiving God.
3 John: Hierarchy’s Harm
Over the centuries, beginning with Ignatius’ letters in the second century, this crucial aspect of the church gave way to the surrounding culture, so that one of Christianity’s distinctives was eroded to mere words, tucked away here and there among the gospels and epistles.
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3 John: Lord It Over
Much harm has come to the church because of this hard stop put upon the organic growth of the Body of Christ, which had been meant to be nonhierarchical in its life.
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A Better Reading of 1 Corinthians 11 and 14
Paul shook his head and muttered to himself. He could feel his temperature rise, even against the close heat of the small room he’d been given, to spend the night. But, there was no mistaking what he was reading, as the simple, clay oil lamp flickered its light across the papyrus. “God!” he thought. “God! Why!”
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Gospel of John: Rank and File
How do you teach people who eat, breath, and live hierarchy that the kingdom of God is about equality not rank, family not a flowchart, kinship not kings? Well, you wash their feet.
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The Way of Life
Man is in God’s image, and woman is in God’s image. But that’s not saying enough. God is three-in-one, He is plural, He lives in communion within Himself. So one person is not enough, whether male or female, to accurately display God’s image. No, it must be plural: People are God’s image. That’s what God was saying about Himself.
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Ezer Kenegdo
God made woman to share with man a mutual concern and responsibility, a shared commission to govern the earth, with united commitment to each other that reflected God’s own eternal three-in-one being of equal deity and power.
