Video Transcript: Discussion of the Montanists

Henry - I find it fascinating Carolyn. The Montanists, I just want to launch in there a little bit.  You know, when I went to seminary, the narrative was to highly discredit the Montanists. In  what  

Carolyn - lucky Nathan even got anything about them in seminary.  

Henry - right? No, no, we did. Calvin seminary, there was clearly the Montanists. I find it  fascinating that Priscilla was one of the leaders. And again, you can see the history,  historicity, maybe I'm not saying that exactly. Philosophy of like the winners, right. The  history. Absolutely. The ones of power. Yeah, you know, right. And, and I can, I think that's a  danger that we still have, that we, we look at that in some ways, in my research of women  ordination, I found that after the Monatnists, there started to be a real momentum to be even  against the ordination of women in literature as I've started reading stuff. So that was a  powerfully negative  

Carolyn - influence. Yeah, yeah, as I said, it was a foil it was a was a handy thing that that  male church writers could say, well, look what, how they messed it up, you know, which they  didn't actually mess it up. Well, it was an apocalyptic movement. And amongst, I'm sure many of you are familiar with apocalyptic movements that say the ends of the world was coming in  on October 22. And it was, it did have that aspect to it. But also it was it was a wonderful  revival of the spirit of prophecy. And that's what they were trying to do. 

Henry - Right. And somehow, back to that balance, that chorismo got a little too out of hand.  And the order. And then when the order side one out, then it's sort of like overkill, the  charisma I think about I mean like, look at the early church isn't it true that the the apostles  thought that Christ was coming back in their day.  

Carolyn - Yes, but Paul certainly sounds that way as if he thought that and we we try to  explain that away. And but it seems pretty clear that he did think that and of course, he was  not, right,  

Henry - right. I mean, so. So the, the, it is like, the Montanists aren't that bad, because the  reality of the early Apostles thought, that Christ was going to come back in their day and then it became more and more clear, oh, this is a long haul. And, you know, so I can see that. One  more thing about women's ordination. It seems as we're going through this, that to break the  social patterns, like Phoebe does. There is a dynamic between the ideal and what's practiced.  I like to call it the gospel hermeneutics. Paul was always aware of honoring the ideal, but  being about the gospel hermeneutic, like, hey, Phoebe, you're inyour'e in. Here's the, if we  suppose that she carries the gospel of Romans.  

Carolyn - the letter yeah, the letter clarifies, I haven't actually I haven't actually said that  anywhere. The way that Paul talks about Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2, I, I recommend I  commend her on introducing her. It sounds as if the most likely explanation is that she is  carrying his letter. They didn't have postal service, you know, and when somebody was going  somewhere where you wanted to send something, you You gave it to them. And the person  then who carries the letter is probably the person who also delivers it in the sense of oral  delivery. Who if if they had that kind of skill, they're the ones who read it. And they've just  seen Paul, you know, a couple of months ago, maybe? And well what did you think Paul meant by that? And then and then this person is interpreted would be the one who would say, Well,  this is what I think he meant. And this is, you know, we were talking about it, and I think that's what he meant. So it would be she would be also the person who is delivering it orally and  interpreting it in the community.  

Henry - So lastly, back to the ideal and the practical. I want you to critique my own sort of  development on this and just gonna do it very surprised to see like, the Pentecost sermon, 

that moment when your sons and your daughters will prophesy, there's a launching and in the and in the end, where it's going to come is that all hands on deck for the gospel? Okay, there  we go. Okay, so now we have the time of the practicalities of stuff and how you're dealing  with Roman Social Code and family code and so forth. And then, but still, you Get the Phoebe, these exceptions to the Social Code, you get other women. We were talking a little bit ago  about house churches and in how many house churches are mentioned as being, you know,  led by women. They're opening their homes. So you sort of get the sons and daughters  prophecy, and then you but now their social code, but then you also see these social  allowances, completely ignorant people, men or women should be silent and probably that  many women in that culture wives, didn't have the education maybe it was a detraction. I  mean, there's all those things that are functioning. And, again, there's a lot of interpretation.  And then you see in the early church, which we're going to talk about next, that there's an  opening up whether the Montanist movement or others where women are sons and daughters daughters are out their ministry. Okay, good. The question is good. And with that, we'll close  this segment.