Bent Oak Church

What does Paul really mean when he tells wives to submit to their husbands and husbands to be the head of their wives? In Ephesians 5, Paul addresses marriage within the social structures of the Roman world, but his instructions offer a radical vision of love, service, and unity. By looking closely at the historical context, Paul's language, and the example of Christ, we discover how the gospel transforms our understanding of marriage. Rather than focusing on power and authority, Paul calls husbands and wives to mutual submission, self-sacrificial love, and a shared life shaped by Jesus.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on men and women, young and old, transforming the early church and its mission. In this sermon, we explore Acts 2 and Galatians 3 to consider how the Spirit reshapes our understanding of men and women, gives us equal standing in Christ, and calls every believer to participate in the work of the gospel. We discover that our freedom in Christ is not simply for ourselves but is meant to be offered in service to others for the sake of God's mission.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus brings men and women together as disciples, servants, and witnesses to his kingdom. From the women named in his genealogy to the first witnesses of his resurrection, we discover how Jesus begins restoring the partnership between men and women that sin fractured in the garden. In this sermon, we explore what the Gospels reveal about men, women, and Jesus’ radical redefinition of leadership through service and sacrifice.

Continuing our series on men and women through the biblical story, Chase closes out the Old Testament with the prophets. The law could expose Israel's brokenness but not heal it, and by Judges 19, one of Scripture's darkest stories, a husband has become a violent master. Hosea reverses that language, promising a day when God's people will call him "my husband" instead of "my master." This is a God who pursues his unfaithful people with tenderness and whose love finds its fulfillment in Christ, the bridegroom who steps forward to face the mob himself.

Why does the Old Testament law say what it says about men and women? In this message from our series on men and women, we look at the hard passages honestly and ask what a law is for. Laws exist because of wrongs; they're floors, not ceilings, meant to check the spread of evil rather than inspire what's possible. The law of Israel was given in the middle of a story, to a people still living in the wreckage of Genesis 3, and Jesus himself said parts of it were given for hardness of heart.

As we continue our look at the Biblical relationship between men and women, we come to the call of Abraham and the promise God makes to him and to Sarah. We will see that the promise required their partnership, and yet each of them found a plan to secure it alone and at the other's expense. Genesis records their failures side by side, and then shows us the one God goes out to find.

As we continue our look at the Biblical relationship between men and women, we come to the first sin, often called the fall of man. We will see that as God created men and women in cooperation with one another, they shared not only in their calling but also in their disobedience. But their shared disobedience drove a wedge between what God had created.

We begin our new series by examining the two creation accounts and the countercultural narrative of God's creation of male and female. God made men and women in his image and tasked them, as partners, with fruitfulness and dominion. 

From Jesus' prayers in the gospels to the church gathered to pray in homes and the temple, God's people are a people of prayer. As we wrap up our series on Acts, we're looking at one last theme: prayer. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, and as they took the gospel ot the world, they taught us to pray as well. 

We are continuing to look at the major themes of Acts. This week we look at Christ's calling to bear witness. The church sent missionaries to the world, but each also took responsibility for bearing witness wherever they were. We look at what it means to be participants in that work today.