After Jesus’ magnificent entry into Jerusalem yesterday, you could sense that something explosive might happen. With the throngs of people surrounding Him and praising Him, believing He was going to be the man to save them from the Romans, there was a great anticipation in the air.

But as much as there was excitement and adoration for the man whom many had seen do miracles—including raising a man from the dead—you could also feel a great sense of resentment. It is no secret that the high priests have no love for Jesus, and that loathing is beginning to turn to hatred considering what Jesus did today.

Still with great crowds following Him, Jesus walked into the Temple and couldn’t believe what He saw. Merchants buying and selling, and many times not dealing with their customers in an honest manner. You wonder what goes on in the hearts of these people and why they feel like they need to cheat their customers.

In seeing this, Jesus not only drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, but He also overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves. From what I’ve heard of this Man, He is not given to anger and is very forgiving to sinners.

That’s what makes this whole scene very puzzling.

Nonetheless, Jesus said to them:

“My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a ‘dean of thieves.'” (Matt. 21:13).

It’s very surprising to see a Man who brings peace to wherever He goes be so angry at these people. He also called it “My house.” A lot of people are wondering exactly what He means by that.

They would soon find out as the blind and the lame came to Him in the Temple, and He healed them (Matthew 21:14). Once again, this not only disturbed the high priests, but it angered them as well. Jesus said to them:

“Out of the mouth of children and infants, you have perfected praise?” (Matt. 21:17).

You can see people gathering around and talking. They now may be contemplating if this was the man that came to deliver them from Roman tyranny. Or is He just some prophet that is all talk and no action when it comes to defeating the Romans?

Whatever the case, the hypocrisy of many of the high priests and Jewish leaders appears as if it is about to be exposed. Jesus isn’t finished with them yet. With the look in His eyes, He has much more in store for these so-called “men of God.”

From all of this activity, He looks tired. He probably realized He wouldn’t get any rest in the city, so He left and went to Bethany, where He lodged for the night. {eoa}

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Day 1

Editor’s Note: The preceding is an account of what one person could possibly have witnessed in Jerusalem on Monday. It is the second day of what happened, according to the Bible, during Holy Week. Some of the text is creative license.

Eschatology has become a hot issue in these end times. Will it be a pre-tribulation rapture, a mid-tribulation rapture or a post-tribulation rapture?

Jack Hibbs, the founder and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Chino Hills, California, says the answer to that question is pretty clear, and most of all, it’s biblical.

“The reason I believe in the rapture is the same reason I believe in water baptism or, for that matter, salvation by faith and by faith alone. It’s because it’s in the Bible. But what do I mean by this?

“In John chapter 14 verses 1 through 3, Jesus is the first one to introduce the teaching of the rapture.”

That portion of Scripture reads, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also.”

Hibbs says, “It’s Paul the apostle that elaborates on it beautifully in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 17 in great detail. That portion of Scripture reads:

“‘But I would not have you ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and arose again, so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall be forever with the Lord.’

“Here’s what we need to remember is that the First Coming and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is for the Jewish people and to Jerusalem, and to set up His kingdom,” Hibbs says. “The rapture is something that is an appearance in the atmosphere. And, it’s to take the church to heaven to meet Christ.”

The biggest proof of a pre-tribulation rapture, Hibbs says, comes in Revelation 19, which Hibbs says shows the church in heaven before the great Second Coming of Christ.

So, it’s biblical, and it’s the blessed hope.” {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

A Utah parent, frustrated some of the books that are being removed from school libraries in recent months, is calling for the eradication of what she calls “one of the most sex-ridden books around”—the Bible.

The unidentified parent submitted a request to the Davis County School District in December to review the Bible for any “inappropriate content.”

The parent’s request is to specifically remove the Bible from the shelves of Davis High School.

“Get this PORN out of our schools,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported that the parent wrote in her request. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk.”

A conservative group called Utah Parents United has targeted books like “The Bluest Eye” and “Gender Queer,” a graphic novel about the author’s journey of self-identity. Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, a Republican from West Jordan who sponsored the bill to remove pornographic books from school libraries, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the request to pull the Bible are “antics that drain school resources.”

“There was a purpose to the bill and this kind of stuff, it’s very unfortunate,” Ivory said. “There are a number of studies that directly link sexualization and hyper-sexualization with sexual exploitation and abuse. Certainly, those are things we don’t want in schools.”

The upset parent calling for the Bible to removed cited a list of 130 verses from Genesis to Revelation. She listed several adjectives not appropriate for print here, but said, “You’ll no doubt find the Bible, Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

The Salt Lake Tribune article said “the code referenced in the request defines pornographic and harmful materials as those which include a ‘description or depiction of illicit sex or sexual immorality’ or a ‘nude or partially denuded figure. However, the code notes that such definitions do not apply to any material with “‘serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors,’ which could likely include the Old and New Testaments.

Some of the Bible verses referenced in the parent’s request include several laws for the people of Israel given to Moses at Mount Sinai, including laws regarding homosexuality (Lev. 18:22), incest (Deut. 27:20-23) and sexual assault (Judg. 19:22-29).

Yet other verses like Jesus’ words from Matthew 15:9 and Revelation 2 were also marked as “pornographic” by the parent:

• “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and blasphemies (Matt. 15:19).
• “But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication” (Rev. 2:14).

The American Library Association says “the war over banning books has become heated in recent years.” Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2022, the organization said it documented 681 attempts to ban or restrict library resources, aimed at 1,651 titles; more than 70% of the attempts sought to ban multiple titles.

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This isn’t fantasy, and it’s not “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” End times expert Michael Snyder says Israeli officials—among others—know exactly where the Ark of the Covenant is located, and there will come a time soon for that location to be revealed.

And once that location is finally revealed, Snyder says, “the Israeli people will see an immediate need to construct a new temple for it.” And the construction of a third temple will fulfill Bible prophecy, as the Messianic Bible reads “that the Hebrew prophets all proclaimed that in the last days, the exiles of Israel would return to the Promised Land and that the Temple would be rebuilt.”

Ezekiel 37:28 reads, “Then the nations will know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.

Free Messianicbible.com says “These phenomenal end-time events are unfolding before our very eyes!”

Snyder says the “truth is that the location of the Ark of the Covenant has actually been known for decades.

For those who aren’t familiar with what the Ark of the Covenant is, Britannica.com defines it as: the ornate, gold-plated wooden chest that in biblical times housed the two tablets of the Law given to Moses by God. The Ark rested in the Holy of Holies inside the Tabernacle of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem and was seen only by the high priest of the Israelites on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

One reader told Snyder that the Temple Institute “has even publicly admitted that they know exactly where the Ark of the Covenant is. The following excerpt comes from the page where the Temple Institute answers frequently asked questions:

“The Ark of the Covenant is one of the most fascinating of all Temple-related subjects. There are many theories about what happened to the Ark of the Covenant, and speculation abounds as to its actual location. Some people think it was taken to the Vatican, together with other Temple vessels, such as those depicted on the Roman monument, the Arch of Titus. There are many authentic, ancient historical chronicles and even more popular legends, that attest to many sacred vessels having been taken away to Rome. However, this does not apply to the most holy feature of the First Temple, the Ark.

“While some claim to have evidence that the ark is in Ethiopia, and of course, moviegoers were treated to a fanciful version of the story in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” in reality, the expression ‘lost’ ark is not an accurate description for the Jewish people’s point of view—because we have always known exactly where it is. So the Ark is ‘hidden,’ and hidden quite well, but it is not lost.

“Tradition records that even as King Solomon built the First Temple, he already knew, through divine inspiration, that eventually it would be destroyed. Thus Solomon, the wisest of all men, oversaw the construction of a vast system of labyrinths, mazes, chambers and corridors underneath the Temple Mount complex. He commanded that a special place be built in the bowels of the earth, where the sacred vessels of the Temple could be hidden in case of approaching danger. Midrashic tradition teaches that King Josiah of Israel, who lived about 40 years before the destruction of the First Temple, commanded the Levites to hide the Ark, together with the original menorah and several other items, in this secret hiding place which Solomon had prepared.

“This location is recorded in our sources, and today, there are those who know exactly where this chamber is. And we know that the ark is still there, undisturbed, and waiting for the day when it will be revealed. An attempt was made some few years ago to excavate towards the direction of this chamber. This resulted in widespread Moslem unrest and rioting. They stand a great deal to lose if the Ark is revealed—for it will prove to the whole world that there really was a Holy Temple, and thus, that the Jews really do have a claim to the Temple Mount.”

Snyder says he disagrees with the Temple Institute about who hid it. Instead of King Josiah, Snyder says he believes Jeremiah hid it in order to keep it from being captured by the Babylonians.

“But we all agree where it is right now,” Snyder says. “It is in a cave under the Temple Mount, and it will stay there until the time comes for it to be revealed. And, that could happen a lot sooner than you think.”

Once it is finally revealed, it will be just a matter of time before Jewish leaders start conducting sacrifices. In fact, the Temple Institute says that such offerings could actually begin before the building of the Temple itself.

There are other explanations by other scholars and experts.

Jim Barfield, a retired criminal investigator who heads up the Copper Scroll Project, has developed a passion to decipher the famed Copper Scroll discovered, found in 1952. Barfield established the Copper Scroll Project to “help the nation of Israel recover the treasures of the Copper Scroll.”

Watch this video to see Barfield’s extensive explanation on why he and others believe that the Ark of Covenant is in Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered recently. Qumran is located on the northwestern shore of the dead Sea in the Judean Desert, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

Snyder says, in his opinion, that the “public revelation of the Ark of the Covenant could be the catalyst” of the building of the Third Temple. “Once the entire world sees that the Ark of the Covenant still exists, that will change everything,” Snyder says.

And, he says, it will be the “greatest archaeological bombshell in human history.” {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

If there is one thing that God has engrained into Pastor Jeremy Foster over the past year, it’s grace.

He has received a lot of it, and he’s learning more and more every day how to give it back to others.

The founder of Hope City Church in Houston, Texas—a megachurch with weekend attendance of roughly 12,000—resigned his position as lead pastor over a year ago after confessing to an adulterous affair. During the past year, he has received counseling and has attempted to mend relationships between his ex-wife, his children and his ex-church.

In a heart-felt post on Instagram this week, Foster poured out his heart and did not excuse his behavior, but wanted people to know that God has forgiven him and he’s learning to forgive himself.

“I’ve learned that I can either have grace or defend myself. I have no defense, and I need God’s grace, deeply,” Foster says. “I’ve apologized to (his ex-wife) Jennifer, I’ve apologized to my kids. We walked through a divorce, and divorce is ugly in every form of the word.

“I’m still not OK, it takes time and God to heal things. With Jenn and I, it’s has been very amicable and we have been able to work together well concerning the kids. I’m learning a whole other side of life that exists. It’s one thing to get up and preach to people who are broken, and it’s another thing to be in one yourself and one that you caused. I’m disappointed in myself, but you live and learn.”

Foster said he wanted to apologize to the Hope City Church congregation immediately after his moral failure, but the elder board at church “didn’t think it was a good idea.” Foster says he now agrees with the decision and knows why it happened.

Foster appears to have repented of his sin, and of course, God is a forgiving God of a truly repentant heart. Others who commented on his Instagram post have also forgiven him.

On Foster’s Instagram post, Matthew Barnett, the co-founder of the Dream Center and senior pastor of the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, wrote: “I love you so much! What an amazing friend you have been to me and so many.”

Christian artist Israel Houghton wrote on Instagram, “Love and appreciate you, my brother. Your transparency will set others free. Thank you for your heart.”

Heather Monahan, a professional speaker and best-selling author wrote, “I’m so proud of you my friend!”

“I received a lot of messages from people that are really grace filled and kind, and I’m super grateful for that,” Foster said. “There have been some I responded to, and some where I didn’t know what to say. But thank you.

“I have received some other messages that were rough, and I probably needed every one of those, too, to help me understand the gravity of this situation. And I get it … maybe. Here’s what I have learned, but I still have a lot to learn.”

Despite Foster’s moral failure, Hope City Church is one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States.

Foster’s admission to his affair came approximately a year-and-a-half after TBN UK posted an interview with the Fosters that candidly shared how God had healed their dysfunctional marriage. Jennifer Foster apparently had physically abused Jeremy, while at times, Jeremy called her “crazy.”

In the Instagram video, Jeremy Foster says he is now remarried and “at peace with his life, but not with his sin. He now works in the private sector, and he says that’s been “good for me.”

“I’m at peace with God,” Foster says. “I don’t know what I’ll do publicly. I don’t know if I’m doing anything publicly. Maybe at some point … I do know God has given me gifts to help people. And that’s what I want to do, is just help people.” {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

Mario Murillo says it’s the most unique evangelistic situation he has ever seen in all of his years of ministry.

Last week during the Living Proof Bakersfield meetings, Murillo said there were wealthy people who came to find Jesus. There were homeless people who came to find Jesus.

But, to Murillo’s surprise, it was a large group of young men who came seeking Jesus in the tent crusade, and a majority of those men found Him. It stunned the evangelist and preacher of the Good News.

“Young men, more than any other demographic, came to Bakersfield and came to Christ,” Murillo told Charisma News’ John Matarazzo earlier this week at the Fire and Glory Conference in Ocala, Florida. “This runs against the grain of everything we know about modern evangelism in the United States.”

So much so that many local gang members, invited by a friend of Murillo’s, surrendered their lives to Christ on the first night. It took others a return trip to the multi-night event in Bakersfield, California, but they too, with tears in their eyes, took Christ as their Savior to hopefully begin a new life of service to God.

Murillo gives all of the glory for the gang members’ transformation, but God worked through his friend, Manual Carrizales, who invited them to the tent crusade through his connections with them in Bakersfield, a city Murillo says is one of “the most gang-controlled cities in America.

“There is a great deal of violence in Bakersfield, and the murder rate there at one point reached the highest in the United States,” Murillo says. “Fentanyl is killing people there. And that gives you an ideal how the infrastructure is there.

“My friend Manual Carrizales is the head of Stay Focused Ministries in Bakersfield. There are approximately 26 chaplains on the Bakersfield Police Department, but all 26 chaplains were unavailable so they called Manual. They are so inundated with stories of people dying on all the time. We went in there, our tent went up in the heart of their neighborhood and God did great things that night.”

Murillo says eventually the gang members surrendered to Christ during the four-night event, but God particularly touched the heart of one young gang member. In addition to his addiction to fentanyl, the young man has stricken with cancer.

“And yet, he’s standing there getting saved,” Murillo says. “When the Holy Spirit says ‘tell him that he has cancer and that God is healing right at the moment of his conversion,’ well, he was converted. He became broken when he realized God was aware of his cancer as well as his addiction.

“And then, he was saved. He’s healed. His face changed. And, he joined our outreach team, so he left Bakersfield to go to Stockton to be with our Inner City action. He’s being discipled right now, so he went from literally death to life and is now bringing life to other people. That’s amazing. That’s the gospel at work.”

Murillo said this was only one instance of the great work God is doing in Bakersfield, and it was “the largest representation of non-Christians to attend a crusade of any event we’ve ever staged.”

Multitudes of non-Christians have been attending Murillo’s crusades over the past few months, and, Murillo says, it is destroying the stereotypes that “many, many Christian leaders have or America,” many he says that “don’t want Christ in the inner city or the racial issue to exist.”

“Well, we go in unapologetically and we’re watching all of those things destroyed.”

To watch the full interview with Evangelist Mario Murillo, and to be blessed by his words, click here. {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

Mario Murillo says the minority communities in America are beginning to wake up, and that’s a double whammy for Satan and for those who belong to him.

In fact, Murillo says, it’s the Latino community that is going to lead a wave of revival in America that has never been seen before in the U.S.

“There is a major spiritual awakening going on,” Murillo told Charisma News’ John Matarazzo during an interview at the recent Fire and Glory Conference in Ocala, Florida. … There has become such a desperation now. … In fact, I’m going to predict right here, right now, that the wave of revival in the Latin churches in America is going to end up being the most forceful spiritual awakening that we have. It will transcend anything else.”

And what makes Murillo believe that?

“It’s because there is a natural sense of family values in the Latin culture,” he says. “The fact that they are here, however wrong it was that they got here, what the devil meant for evil, God is going to use to His advantage. Their Catholicism prewires them to believe in miracles.

“So, we do attend crusades in the Latin community. Wheelchairs are empty, blind eyes are opened, cancers vanish. People are healed because of their pre-wired faith in miracles.”

A Pew Research Center study in 2019 revealed that Hispanics in America are no longer majority-Catholic. In 2009, 57% of Hispanics called themselves Catholic; but 10 years later, that number had dropped to 47%.

The problem with that is that those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” increased from 16% to 23%.

Murillo believes those numbers, however, are changing as well, because Hispanics are flocking to churches looking to see how mightily God can and will move in their lives.

And not only is the Latino community awakening, Murillo says the Black community is arising and heeding to the truth as well. He calls it unification reverse.

“You see that because now there is such a desperation,” Murillo said. “You know, when leaders in the black community, for example, found out about Margaret Sanger, and the true intention of Planned Parenthood and the racist roots, they began waking up to that. They also saw that black conservatives were being called racist. That’s how detached from logic, the thinking is. So, minorities are waking up.”

The Perils of Social Media

One thing that is a danger to this unification movement and the Spirit-filled movement today, Murillo says, is social media. It can have an impact that could lead many millions astray.

“It’s the greatest danger because it’s empowered unqualified people to have a following like never before,” Murillo says. “And so, we have fake prophets, fake apostles, fake teachers. And it couldn’t come at a worse time because there is a segment of the church that seems to be right which says, ‘oh, we shouldn’t judge that or let’s be sweet and not point that out.’

“But that’s not biblical. I had a man tell me that we shouldn’t correct false doctrine and just trust the Holy Spirit that He will work it out. Well, that makes no sense because 60% of the New Testament was written in reaction to and correcting false doctrine. Evidently, that is an important issue to God. The danger is the audience itself.

“And, we read a verse in the Bible backwards—it’s 2 Timothy 4, that says, the day will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own lusts will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. You’ll notice that whenever that verse is preached on that the individual will say, this is a warning against false teachers. It’s absolutely the opposite. It’s a warning against the false audience.”

For more of Charisma News’ interview with Mario Murillo, click here. {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor for Charisma Media.

I’ve been a parent for a little more than 21 years, with a daughter and an 18-year-old son. In all that time, I was under the impression that my children, GenZers and many millennials simply didn’t get it.

As a Christian for more than 33 years and a man who has worked for a Christian media company for nearly 11 years, I always wondered why these youngsters were so dissatisfied with the church—and with God, for that matter. Why, as many continue to believe and to report, are the majority of the youth leaving the church and shunning the things their parents are trying to instill in them?

After all, as the Bible says in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever.”

In other words, Jesus never changes. Ever. We, in our flawed human state, are the only ones that do.

And for that, I am grateful. It means that I don’t have to stay stuck in my sometimes error-filled beliefs. It means I can grow in Christ and leave behind my arrogant attitudes that I simply know better than some others—especially my children and the youth of today.

It has taken some pretty miraculous recent events—including a three-week outpouring at a Christian university in a small town in Kentucky—as well as a movie about a beautiful movement that happened 50 years ago—to teach this old dog some new kingdom tricks.

The Asbury University “revival” that took the nation by storm in February showed me that indeed the youth of today not only know what they are doing, it also showed me that they have a hunger inside them for something different, something wonderful, something miraculous that many of us in an older generation have simply forgotten.

Watching these kids worship, repent and surrender to Jesus with all their heart and with a passion to share their experience with the rest of the nation, and the world for that matter, led me to repent of the fact that I had completely misjudged the younger generations and their thirst for God’s Word.

Don’t get me wrong. I have worked here at Charisma with some wonderful younger people who no doubt have a strong love for God inside of them. There are some here that I work with now whom I admire for their zeal for Jesus.

But for the longest time, it was me who just didn’t get it. And I think many who are my age or maybe even older and also a bit younger than I am can learn a lesson from these beautiful youth who are, according to Outreach magazine, looking for sincerity, the avoidance of hypocrisy, authenticity, support, forgiveness, no judgment, unification and inspiration. Who could blame them for wanting such godly things?

And then, there is the Jesus Revolution movie. Unless you’ve been, pardon the cliché, hiding under a rock, you’ve heard about this film that is not only breaking box office records but is also smashing “cultural desperation,” co-producer and director Jon Erwin says.

It is also changing lives, including mine.

At Charisma, we’ve extensively covered the impact this movie has had on our culture. Within the past week, I went to the theater to see exactly what I was missing.

As it turns out, I had been missing quite a bit. During the two hours I spent in my local theater, I came to discover that the people who started the Jesus Movement in the late 1960s were not just “hippies” rebelling against the culture, but they were genuine people like Lonnie Frisbee and Greg Laurie who came to love Jesus in a way that many of us could never previously understand.

At the beginning, Chuck Smith’s church was small and full of stodgy “Christians.” But when Smith met Frisbee, things changed. Frisbee’s “friends” soon filled the church, praising the Lord with an innocence that Jesus had to smile upon. Many of the original church folks became frustrated and upset, and then left the church. I can’t say that I wouldn’t have been one of them.

But as the movie progressed, it was the youth, including Laurie, that repented and found the truth they had been searching for. I wept a few times, including when Laurie was saved and at the end when Smith apologized to Laurie and handed him the keys to a church he had just bought.

All the while, I continued to think about my children and the “at-times” contentious relationship I’ve had with them. I always believed they didn’t get it, yet I’ve come to realize that it is me that didn’t get the true love that God is trying to show us all.

All God wants from us is to surrender to Him, and because of Asbury and the Jesus Revolution movie, I now find myself doing that very thing. No matter what happens in my life, I trust Him completely now, and I know that I will have a better relationship with my wife and children. And, I know I will never midjudge the younger generation again.

If you haven’t seen the movie, I pray you will. Believe me, it will change you, and I think you will “get it” too. {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.

Andy Wood isn’t about to apologize for Saddleback’s Church stance on appointing women to positions of authority in his church.

Wood, who took over as lead pastor at Saddleback last fall for founding pastor Rick Warren, says that, despite the fact his church was expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention in February for its decision to hire a female pastor—his wife, Stacie, as a teaching pastor—Saddleback will continue to stick to what God’s Word has to say on the subject.

In a recent video on the church’s YouTube channel, Wood pointed out several Scriptures in God’s Word that proved that women indeed were allowed to take on such positions in the church.

Section 6 of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptism and Faith Message disagrees with Saddleback’s decision and discusses the role of the church, which reads: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

Warren said he once held that belief for many years, but three years ago, he found the need to repent of those beliefs, citing three passages of Scripture to back up his turnaround.

One Scripture that often comes up in this discussion of women serving as pastors in the church is 1 Timothy 2:12, in which the apostle Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to usurp authority over a man, but to be silent.”

Wood says the spostle Paul did not lead the local church in that manner, and says it’s important for believers to understand the concept of spiritual offices and spiritual gifts found in the New Testament.

“When it comes to spiritual gifts, there is a myriad list that you see showing up through the New Testament. In particular, there were five spiritual gifts that the apostle Paul talks about in the book of Ephesians that are equipping gifts,” Wood says. “Paul is speaking in chapter 4, verse 11 when he says ‘Christ gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers; He gave them to equip His people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.’ …

“You see it through the book of Acts. The question to wrestle through is in the New Testament is, were there both men and women who had the apostleship gift, the pastoral gift, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. Undoubtedly, when you study the New Testament, almost every theologian would argue yes, there are men who are apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. The question that is oftentimes in controversy is, do women have those spiritual gifts or are they commissioned by God to be functioning in those particular areas of the local church.

“What we would say to that is all throughout the New Testament, both in Paul’s teaching and in Jesus’ teaching, we see apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. In Romans 16:7, there is a woman by the name of Junia who was commissioned as an apostle. In fact, Paul said she was known as an apostle. When it comes to prophets, we see Phillip, in Acts chapter 2, he had four daughters who were prophets. When it comes to evangelists, In John chapter 20 verses 16 through 18, the first evangelists after the Resurrection were women. When it comes to shepherds, in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse 19, we see very clearly that Aquilla and Priscilla were shepherds that were in a local church and they were shepherding people. When it comes to teachers, in Romans Chapter 16 verse 1 and 2 in particular, Paul commends a woman by the name of Phoebe as a teacher.”

Wood says it is important for believers to recognize that, from a descriptive angle in the New Testament, it shows women in roles of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher.

Wood said that’s clear throughout the Bible that God intended to have two genders and that while today’s mainstream culture focuses on “gender transitions,” he says Saddleback is not “caving to the culture.”

“We’re trying to get back to God’s design,” Wood says. “What did God intend when you go to Genesis and you see God making Adam and Eve? What was God’s intention?” he asked. “There’s a danger in this conversation with what is called a trajectory hermeneutic. A trajectory hermeneutic says, ‘Well, Jesus got the ball down the field this far, and now culture’s taken things further, and we’re trying to catch up to culture. We are not trying to catch up to culture in this conversation.” {eoa}

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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor for Charisma Media.

“Jesus Revolution” is apparently resonating with everyone—believers and non-believers alike—and the box office numbers are showing it.

In its three-week run since debuted in theaters on Feb. 24, the film starring Kelsey Grammer and “The Chosen’s” Jonathan Roumie has surpassed $40 million in sales and is showing no signs of slowing down. In its opening weekend, it earned a third-place position at the box office, far exceeding its expectations while raking in $15 million.

In an exclusive interview with Charisma News this week, co-producer and director Jon Erwin shared how the movie’s delay in getting made turned out to be God working in His perfect timing.

“It’s great to see those headlines that say the faith audience shocks the industry,” Erwin said. “After such a long, long season of an industry being rebuilt, the last three years have been the most disruptive time ever in the history of theatrical movies.”

Indeed the film is shocking the world. Lionsgate Entertainment, the studio that made the film, has reported that “Jesus Revolution” has become its highest-grossing movie—secular or Christian—since 2019.

“The numbers are incredible, especially coming out of a pandemic,” co-producer Kevin Downes told Christian Headlines. And, Downes said, moviegoers eager for faith films are “not going away.”

Pastor Greg Laurie, portrayed by Joel Courtney and whom the film is centered on as he meets hippie street preacher Lonnie Frisbee (portrayed by Roumie), told Fox & Friends Weekend that “the timing of this film is incredible, and I believe God’s hand has been on it from the beginning.

“[The film] seems to be resonating with everyone, believers and non-believers. Young and old … God is still in the business of changing lives. … What happened to us some 50 years ago can still happen for people today.” {eoa}

Bring Charisma magazine home with a subscription today!

Shawn A. Akers is the online editor for Charisma Media.