Cyndi CD! and "Me and Fee pt. 1"

a)

Just bought Cyndi Wang’s 2007 album, Magic Cyndi, at the local grocery store. SOO good. Will be in my cd player for quite a while. And it was one of the cheapest cd’s in the store. What are the odds??

b)

Been reading Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart’s “How to Read the Bible for All its Worth”. Lots of people say its good, I can see why – its challenging but written for the average reader, and its really practical. I’m about half-way through it, and am benefiting from it for sure.

I don’t know much about Douglas Stuart, but I do know a bit about Gordon Fee. Lemme give you my personal story of Fee:

Last year, summer of ’06, I got the opportunity to get some training in Vancouver before heading off to Asia. While there, we headed to a Church that an important professor, Gordon Fee, attended. I had no idea who this guy was, but was told he wrote a really good book on how to read the Bible. The only thing was… I didn’t really like the Church.

I’m a complementarian, which means I think guys and gals are totally equal in value, but they have different roles. One of the roles that God’s entrusted to men and not women is the eldership (Pastors) of the Church. So, when the female “pastor” came up to preach, I prayed to God that I wouldn’t be judgmental, and come with a humble heart to hear God’s Word. I can’t remember her name, but she did show that she could do just as good a job as the average male preacher. Unfortunately, this means that she used minimal Bible (the only thing I remember from the talk was an illustration about a chicken, the talk was about money. There were some verses, but drawing the meaning out of the text was definitely not her main priority). This is not to say that other women couldn’t do better, but that’s just how it was. (note: there were other good things about the Church)

So, I didn’t know what to think of this Fee guy. If he’s a good theologian, why’s he hitting up a Church with such weak preaching? Why does he go to a Church that clearly denies Biblical gender roles? Since then, I’ve heard Fee’s name in other places which have helped answer these questions:

Fee was pretty involved in the whole gender roles debate (especially in the late 80’s era), writing a lot of stuff about why gender doesn’t play a role in deciding what positions people have in the Church. Fee also was on the translation committee on the NIV and TNIV. Now he’s teaching at Regent College (in Vancouver).

But I wanted to read a book on how to read the Bible and Fee’s was recommended by people I respect and trust. So, I picked it up, kinda unsure what to expect, especially at the chapter on translations. I was pretty disappointed to find that it was just as I expected – Fee uses the book to promote his interpretation of gender roles, and he uses the translation chapter to promote the TNIV. But I did find it interesting cause I don’t often read an entire book with ideas that I disagree with. I’d like to use a couple posts to talk about that chapter, hopefully in a way that puts these things in pretty simple terms.

Hey, just wanted to say that if you think i’m wrong on something, lemme know, even on the comments, I’d like to know.