Shepastor: Highlights from Conference Plenary Session Delivered by the Reverend Dr. Stephanie Allen, “Woman to Woman: The Historical, Theological and Societal Influences Upon Our Relationships”

What factors influence the way women interact with each another? How have women’s roles and relationships over time impacted our view of sisterhood, trust, bonding, men etc? What issues separate us? What have erroneous, flawed interpretations of scripture done to damage our support for and perceptions of one another?

Today Shepastor highlights an excerpt from the conference Plenary presentation, delivered by The Reverend Dr. Stephanie Allen, Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland, Instructor of Biblical Hebrew for Ashland Theological Seminary. With great depth and insight, Dr. Allen challenged us to consider why the words of others take on greater meaning or value than our own words. When we embrace the words of others to a greater extent than our own words, their views, interpretations, actions or inactions tremendously influence our perceptions.

The greatest words or “Word” that we can embrace to help shape our world view is the Word of God. When we correctly interpret God’s Word, it will shape, influence and drive our self-perceptions as well as our relationships with one another.

Read an excerpt of her message below and be blessed…

Shepastor: Highlights from Conference Plenary Session Delivered by the Reverend Dr. Stephanie Allen, “ Woman to Woman: The Historical, Theological and Societal Influences Upon Our Relationships”

In a postmodern world our tendency is to face conflict, especially over issues as emotive as faith, by saying there is no one, grand meta-narrative; therefore we are all free to “agree to disagree”. Another tactic utilized is to convince one another that one must change sides in order to “win” an argument. I must convince you I am right and you must abandon your ideals or vice versa, but God comes along and says “neither ideal will work”. Instead of human ways to see faith we must see humans through faith and in God’s terms that means God’s Word is the great neutralizer. The leveling field is Scripture. When we view ourselves through the terms of theology, history or sociology we place the lens through the human vantage point, but God’s Word has the power to equalize our reader response ideas, our ecosystems created by humanity and our baggage we bring to the table. In order to overcome the opinions and constraints set by humanity we must reclaim the Word of God as a valid and worthy text: the one great meta-narrative. We do this through refocusing people upon both the particular and universal in any exegesis and with a careful eye on translation. The words then are not only relevant to one era, mind-set, situation or world view and instead we see how God’s transforming work has been done and is ongoing in a sinful world. It will always be our temptation to reduce God to our image, but God being the great God through the work of Jesus Christ does not argue with our desire, but simply pulls our heads up to see our own face in the image of God.

How have the views of others shaped your self-perception and world view? Have you replaced the opinions of others with God’s view of you? If so, how has that changed you? Post a comment or send me an email at
Shepastor1@hotmail.com

Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris