This crisis partly calls for more theological and practical work that explains why Holy Scripture teaches a male-only episcopate. God does not act in arbitrary ways. A male-only episcopate is not a random or eclectic practice of the first century. Some deeper truth is at hand; some rational and explainable reason exists. God created the natural order to work in a specific way. 

During the last forty years, evangelicals have debated whether or not the Bible allows for women to occupy the role of elder or bishop. Egalitarians maintain that men and women may take the office of elder, while complementarians believe in a male-only episcopate. A host of other notions around gender and roles also appear in such discussions.
Yet I have noticed a recent shift in arguments. Yes, both sides still claim the Bible as their source for their conclusions. But egalitarians argue that complementarian teaching is inherently harmful or at least that it controls women. And since harming women is wrong (everyone agrees on this), it follows that complementarianism is wrong. 
A New Egalitarian form of Argument
To cite one example, Aimee Byrd explains in a recent article how she used to believe in complementarian teaching, but now she knows who pays the price for it (i.e. women). Sheila Gregoire explains in a comment how her body reacts—presumably due to experiencing trauma or seeing so much of it—when she considers complementarian teaching. She explains, “​​I just can’t do it anymore. Like, I physically can’t. My body has all those reactions as well.”
I trust that both Byrd and Gregoire have experienced all sorts of unkindness. My point here is not to deny their experience but narrate one example of what seems to be a common pattern. Egalitarians (or those who are at least anti-complementarian) argue:

Major premise: Abuse and traumatizing women are wrong (and all agree)
Minor premise: Complementarian churches have lots of abuse and trauma in them
Conclusion: Complementarian promotes abuse and trauma and is therefore wrong.

Now, churches that promote a late twentieth-century teaching called complementarianism could promote such things in their congregations. We might say they imbibed some modern and rotten theology. Recently, I met someone who basically followed Bill Gothard’s teaching of the family. Admittedly, I find such teachings bizarre and wrong. I had never encountered them before.
When I read Beth Allison Barr’s book on The Making of Biblical Womanhood, I found her negative examples of patriarchy wild and outside of my experience. You can read my review of her book by clicking here.
My suspicion is that those most critical of complementarianism have left a form of fundamentalism as well. And such an exodus often characterizes why they reject so strongly complementarianism. It, after all, encodes a gendered teaching on men and women in pervasive ways.
I also suspect there are many things evangelicals should reject that go under the name of complementarianism. As noted, when I heard about Bill Gothard or some of the things that Beth Barr narrates, I found them both foreign and incorrect.
With all that said, I still wonder if the argument that I described above masks the real debate at hand: what does the Bible teach about the role of a pastor and of men and women generally?
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All in all, the five points of Calvinism like the Five Solas recognize that God is the one who works salvation so only God deserves glory for every aspect of it.  God is the one who predestined all of the elect before time began apart from any merit of our own.  Jesus Christ’s atoning work purchased salvation for all of the elect.  The Holy Spirit works in the elect so that they desire to repent and believe such that God’s grace is irresistible.  And God will cause all of the elect to persevere to the end.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us….For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
-Romans 8:28-34,38-39, ESV
Last time, we began to discuss the distinctives of Reformed theology with the Five Solas that represent the core reasons Protestants had to break away from Roman Catholicism.  John Calvin expanded on this, so this time will focus on the distinctive of most Calvinists, the five points of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.
Calvin and Arminius
As the Reformation spread, various positions began to form on the finer points of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  One of the foremost second-generation Reformers was John Calvin, who articulated a complete theology in one of the great works of church history: Institutes of the Christian Religion.  His work was is foundational to what we now call Reformed theology, but he is best known for how his followers responded to a strong opponent regarding salvation.  Jacobus Arminius disagreed with Calvin’s view of predestination—that God determines who will receive salvation.[1]  His followers believed in the total depravity of man, but they also believed in conditional election based on faith in Christ, unlimited atonement (Christ died for all people not just the elect), that God’s grace was resistible (people can reject it), and conditional perseverance of the saints (a person had to remain in Christ in order to be truly saved).[2]  In response to these five articles, Calvinists laid out what we now know as the Five Points of Calvinism.  John Piper explains them in his book Five Points.
Total Depravity
The first point of Calvinism is one with which true Arminians would largely agree: that all people are totally depraved.  This does not mean that every person acts in as depraved a manner as possible but that our natural condition is depraved.  John Piper describes it this way: “The totality of that depravity is clearly not that man does as much evil as he could do. There is no doubt that man could perform more evil acts toward his fellow man than he does. But if he is restrained from performing more evil acts by motives that are not owing to his glad submission to God, then even his “virtue” is evil in the sight of God”.[3]  Arminians and Calvinists can agree on this because it is so clear throughout Scripture.  All have sinned (Romans 3:23) so there is no such thing as a righteous person who seeks after God (Romans 3:10-11 cf. Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3).  Even our “good” is so polluted by sin that it is unacceptable (Isaiah 64:6).  Plus, sin includes anything not done in faith (Romans 14:23), any good we fail to do (James 4:17), and any impure thoughts or motives, so we sin incessantly.  We are dead in sin apart from Christ, unable to do anything to save ourselves (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Despite the clarity and prevalence of human depravity in Scripture, our society largely denies it.  Most Western churchgoers today would say that people are basically good and any evil is largely due to circumstances.  Critical theory, socialism, cultural Marxism, and the like are built on this error.  Any church that ascribes to these has therefore followed Rome into the error of glorifying human teaching over Scripture.  But even it we officially agree with total depravity, we still significantly downplay our sin and cannot fathom that we deserve hell along with everyone else.  But when we honestly consider our vast sin in thought, word, deed, motive, action, and inaction, we should be cured of that error.  We are far worse than we think we are, so we should all say with Paul: “wretched man that I am, who will delivery me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).
Unconditional Election
Where Arminians and Calvinists begin to differ is on how God elects those He saves.  Scripture is clear that God chose those He saves in eternity past (Ephesians 1:4, 2 Timothy 1:9), but what does that mean?  Arminians would say that God foreknew all who would trust in Christ and elected to save those people, so election is conditional.  But those God foreknew are the ones who receive salvation: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30).  This passage is the most complete form of the ordo salutis (order of salvation) in Scripture, explicitly listing God’s foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification while alluding to adoption and sanctification.  This only happens for believers, so foreknowledge can only refer to those God has chosen for salvation.  Predestination then is not God knowing who would choose Him and then choosing them but God choosing who He would save before even creating them (Ephesians 1:5,11).  This election is completely independent of anything we do.  Total depravity means we cannot choose God unless He first chooses us.  God made His choice before time began, and any choice we make is a result of that choice:
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Written by R. Scott Clark |
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Christ brought with him the Kingdom of God and not the Democracy of God. A king is an office. Jesus is, in distinct ways, King over the church and the world. As King over the church, where he exercises his special, saving providence, he has instituted offices and sacraments. He has not empowered all the people to do everything.

A correspondent wrote to ask whether Christian laity should administer the sacraments? This is an ancient question, though typically we face it in a different form. In the Reformation, Calvin dealt with this question because midwives would administer baptism to infants in view of infant mortality and under the conviction that baptism is necessary to salvation.
Sacraments Not Sentiment
In our setting, the question is a little different. Most evangelicals take a much lower view of the sacrament of baptism than did the sixteenth-century midwife. Most evangelical laity, in 2022, are more likely to administer the sacrament for sentimental reasons (e.g., it’s nice) or under the influence of a radically egalitarian (or democratic) view of the church and sacraments.
To be sure, the medieval, priestly (sacerdotal) view of the sacraments was grossly mistaken. Despite what you might hear from some quarters, the sacraments are divinely instituted signs of divine grace and seals of the same to those who believe but they are not the things signified. Radbertus (a ninth-century monk) was wrong: at consecration, the elements of holy communion do not become the literal, actual body and blood of Christ. Ratramnus was correct. Were that true then they would, by definition, no longer be sacraments. Christ is one thing and a sacrament another. Baptism signifies what Christ does in justification and sanctification but baptism does not itself confer new life, justify, or sanctify. The same sovereign, free, Holy Spirit, who hovered over the face of the deep (Gen 1:2), ordinarily (in both senses, i.e., routinely and by divine ordination) grants new life to his elect through the preaching of the gospel (Rom 10:14–17). In the sacraments, he signifies to our senses the things promised (e.g., in the washing of baptism and in the sight, smell, and taste of the bread and wine) and confirms (seals) the promises of the gospel. They testify to believers that what we have heard preached is really true for us personally. This is why we speak as we do in the Heidelberg Catechism:
73. Why then does the Holy Spirit call Baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins?
God speaks thus not without great cause, namely, not only to teach us thereby that like as the filthiness of the body is taken away by water, so our sins are taken away by the blood and Spirit of Christ; but much more, that by this divine pledge and token He may assure us, that we are as really washed from our sins spiritually as our bodies are washed with water.
We deny that baptism is itself the washing away of sins. Baptism is called the washing of regeneration rhetorically or figuratively (Titus 3:5). The one thing (the sign) is said figuratively to be another, i.e., the reality. This is a sacramental identity or union (See, e.g., Calvin Institutes, 4.15.15). The benefits signed and sealed in baptism are received through faith alone (sola fide) not through baptism.
We say the same sort of thing about the Lord’s Supper:
75. How is it signified and sealed to you in the Holy Supper, that you do partake of the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross and all His benefits?
Thus: that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of Him, and has joined therewith these promises: First, that His body was offered and broken on the cross for me and His blood shed for me, as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup communicated to me; and further, that with His crucified body and shed blood He Himself feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life, as certainly as I receive from the hand of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, which are given me as certain tokens of the body and blood of Christ.
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