9: JUST IGNORE THE “DISPUTED” PASSAGES? 99on the matter of spiritual gifts, all the key passages about miraculous
gifts are “disputed” by sincere Christians. Must we say about all those
passages, “These are disputed passages, and evangelical scholars will
never reach agreement; therefore, we cannot use these passages to decide
what we think about miraculous gifts today”?
Once we begin to use the “avoid disputed passages” approach, we
lose the ability to appeal to hundreds of passages in God’s Word that he
gave us to understand, to believe, and to obey. When that happens, our
churches will be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by
every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14).
A better approach is to say that God has given us his Word so that
it can be understood. Therefore we must study these “controversial
texts” and follow the arguments on both sides until we come to a satis-
factory answer on what they mean.
C. THE IMPORTANCE OF MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON SEEING THE
EVIDENCE, NOT ON THE MERE CLAIM OF SOME EVANGELICAL SCHOLAR
In disputed areas like this, another important principle must be kept in
mind. If a position is true to God’s Word, it should not be based on “just
trust me” arguments from scholars who appeal to evidence that lay peo-
ple cannot examine and evaluate, or who just quote the opinions of
other authors to “prove” their points. Even when it involves arguments
about Greek and Hebrew words, or ancient history, the evidence should
be laid out in clear English, the examples of word usages should be given
in English translation, and interested lay persons should be able to look
at the evidence and evaluate it for themselves, so that people can come
to their own conclusions about what the Bible says.^23
I say this because much of the dispute on the question of men’s and
women’s roles in home and church does not come about because the
Scripture passages are difficult to understand. The “controversy” and
“lack of consensus” over the key passages on women in ministry is in
(^23) For an example of laying out the evidence in this way, see appendices 3 and 7 in Grudem,
Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, where I give in English translation with context over
fifty examples of the Greek word kephal∑(“head”) used to mean “person in authority over”
(544-551) and all eighty-two extant examples of the verb authenteø(“to exercise authority”)
(675-702). Even readers with no technical training in Greek can read these examples and decide
whether they think certain egalitarian claims or complementarian claims are supported by the
relevant evidence.