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Women leaders in church in a different light
My question is...
If women are not to lead in church who will? Look around the congregation. How many wives sit alone with unsaved husbands at home?
My pastor pointed this out once. Said marriage and society both suffer because of weak men who don't teach Godliness in their homes.
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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on
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Seek,
Sorry got stuck on Timothy and should've said Paul. But where do find this is God teaching? Is Paul referencing something said elsewhere to know this is God teaching? If not, why didn't he say God suffers not a woman to teach?
Because when we see Paul speaking, in this case instructing Timothy, we view it as the Holy Spirit speaking through Paul unless Paul tells us otherwise. Otherwise we view Scripture as nothing more than Paul’s opinion to be weighed instead of obeyed. If we view it as opinion to be weighed we are left with man's version of scales to do the weighing. That is why in the comment I made saying basically if Paul is wrong (only opinion) then all of Scripture becomes suspect and opened to man determining the worth of Scripture. Basically we open the door to the same mind set as the “Jesus Seminar” where we begin to vote whether God said this or man.
Yes I like Gil's commentaries, but he isn't any less infallible than anyone else. Such as this, he refers back to Genesis as so many do, and uses how God says a husband and wife are ordered in the household and uses that to state women were to be under the authority of any man. The two aren't speaking in the same light. They reference different matters.
Not speaking in the same light because why?
I've already provided many scriptures within this discussion.OK. I don’t remember any Scripture posted that supported the view, but will go back and look when I have time.
And I've shown how I'm seeing/reading them in conjunction with other things in scripture and within their context.
In context based on what method of Bible hermeneutics? The first place you depart from what has been viewed by the church in days past from solid Biblical hermeneutics is that you view much of Paul’s writings as his opinion instead of as a word from the Lord. Once that has been done context really no longer matters because it is a debate about opinion rather than a desire to understand “God’s Word.” That is not your goal, but that is where you will find yourself heading.
You too provide scripture and how you reach the differing conclusion.
If you do not attempt to play the culture card and if you viewed Paul’s words as God’s Word by what method can you assume that what he said is not applicable for today? What Scripture frees up his direct teaching to say that it is not applicable for today.
This is what I meant about how both use scripture to prove their point on many issues. So how is it people determine they're led and others aren't?
The honest truth will sound offensive … most people do not know how to study Scripture, but only how to read it and they usually do that with preconceived bias. This is why we are told that not everyone is supposed to teach.
Both feel led, both use scripture, and nothing in scripture says whether or not this referred to a particular church for a particular reason, to people in that culture with laws governing how a woman was to act, or for future generations who's laws didn't forbid women to hold positions.
The absence of reference to it being cultural or a clear and compelling change by a future comment constrains u from applying the culture card. What was the view of this subject 100 years ago … 200 years ago … 500 years ago? When did the teaching become believed to be a cultural view? The view has been changing in the last 50 +/- years. So, for the previous 1950 +/- years it was acceptable as normal, but now in the last 50 +/- years it has been challenged as cultural. What changed in our society that brought this change of view regarding this subject? The view of women in our society has changed and now that societal shift has been applied to the church and is challenging the teaching of Scripture. How do they challenge it? Not at face value, but to shift the teaching from God’s Word to Paul’s word and to place the culture card on it. This is what you have been taught and is a common theme today, but that does not make it right. I applaud you for not being satisfied and are looking into these things.
The Bible also tells us to cover our heads, for slaves to obey their masters even if they beat them, but to obey the laws of the land. The laws of this land don't allow for slavery or beatings. So I'm having difficulty understanding how parts are said to pertain specially to a church or that culture while other parts aren't.
Slavery is an interesting issue in Scripture. You will find that it is basically presented in four forms. 1) The Jews as slaves to another nation and mistreated. This is not a God directed way (unless as in Egypt God used it to get their attention), but rather is the historical fact of how the Jews were treated. 2) The Jews enslaved those whom they conquered. They were not instructed to mistreat them, but rather were given laws regarding governing them. In the NT we also see that slavery in the Roman empire was the norm. The call out to those who had slaves (servants) was to treat them right and if one was a slave to serve their master as long as they were int hat position.
Then how do we apply that today? If two people using scripture to prove their belief both say they're ked by the spirit and both make some good points, is one of them lying?Making human arguments using Scripture is not the same as studying Scripture using good hermeneutics to understand what God intends. I will refer to what I commented to Colby about Word of God vs word about God … Exegesis vs Eisegesis … Allegoric vs Literal (including face value) … submission to Scripture vs ruling over Scripture.
Lord Bless,
LT
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Permalink Reply by Seek on
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Not speaking in the same light because why?
Because Genesis is speaking of a man and woman (husband and wife)/household. While Paul's teaching is about women in the church.
In context based on what method of Bible hermeneutics? The first place you depart from what has been viewed by the church in days past from solid Biblical hermeneutics is that you view much of Paul’s writings as his opinion instead of as a word from the Lord. Once that has been done context really no longer matters because it is a debate about opinion rather than a desire to understand “God’s Word.” That is not your goal, but that is where you will find yourself heading.
I guess I differ in that I don't see whether Paul was at times stating personal preference or not to affect the Word of God. Even Paul does not state these were commandments, whether his or God's. This is something he did not permit as I read the text.
What Scripture frees up his direct teaching to say that it is not applicable for today.
For me, it would be the same scripture that says women should cover their head and men shouldn't cover theirs and women shouldn't teach and women should keep quiet in the church is no longer applicable. ;-)
The view of women in our society has changed and now that societal shift has been applied to the church and is challenging the teaching of Scripture
When I read of the other women Paul refers to who were judges and deconesses, teachers, etc., I do not see how there is a societal shift in that. That he was also writing to a specific church in which there were dissension and quarrels, there is a basis in that. Women were to submit to their husbands by God's law. And God also said to obey the laws of the land. The law's then did not permit a woman to do certain things. It doesn't change that she is not to submit to her husband, but I do not see the scripture you are using to say that women are not permitted to preach.
In the NT we also see that slavery in the Roman empire was the norm.
As was the women keeping silent and covering their heads, etc. the norm? ;-)
Making human arguments using Scripture is not the same as studying Scripture using good hermeneutics to understand what God intends. I will refer to what I commented to Colby about Word of God vs word about God … Exegesis vs Eisegesis … Allegoric vs Literal (including face value) … submission to Scripture vs ruling over Scripture.
Wouldn't one need to know what these words mean in order to decipher this? LOL
And I really gotta stop responding from my phone. I didn't know I made that many mistakes.
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Please send the link so i don't miss it. I finally got to do some reading here over the long weekend but back to business and not able to read through new discussions. If i have the link I'll be able to read it later as tomorrow probably not likely. But I'll get to it soon as i can...Friday at the latest. And hopefully from something larger than a credit card.
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The new thread is within this forum and located at the end, but you have already replied to the initial posting.
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LT, you've lost me. Within this forum? Do you mean "All About Bible Questions and Verses - Topical"? And at the end? I've looked and don't see what you're referring to. Can you send me the link?
Anyway, I've made some notes this morning so I can make a bit more sense of what I'm trying to say....
We're talking of Paul and you're saying he was speaking by the Holy Spirit, so God was speaking through him. How many today say God is speaking through them? And I don't doubt that He is in many cases, but those same ones can preach something else that doesn't line up with scripture...because they're not always walking in the Spirit. So if we're to say Paul was speaking for God, then let's examine everything.
Titus 1:13 is also Paul speaking in which he says of false teachers/prophets: This testimony is true. So, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.
In Acts 18: :25, regarding Apollos speaking incorrectly, it says: After Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained the way of God to him more accurately.
This doesn't say that Aquila explained, but both of them did so. She with his blessing apparently. So she in fact was teaching a man alongside her husband. Yet Paul does not say that the women should not teach men except when their husbands are with them, he says specifically women shouldn't teach men...period.
Go on to Paul saying to ask your husbands. When a woman has no husband, and some no father, brother...are they not permitted to ask? And if we're to rebuke false teachings, and a woman knows this to be false and no one speaks out, is she to break that teaching and not rebuke them because they're a man? How would she come to a rock and a hard place here if God's commands are not burdensome? Wouldn't that be a burden to carry not being allowed to speak out and having to listen to your brothers and sisters being taught wrongly when you know the truth and are told to rebuke them and be silent at the same time?
Thinking on these this morning brought up a huge lists of such questions. Matthew 5 says a man can put away his wife for fornication (when I always though fornication was sleeping with someone prior to marriage but neither here nor there). And Abraham put away Hagar. So if she remarried, would she be an adultress? Is she no longer permitted to ask questions because she has no husband to ask and the only one she has is a young son? What of today's culture when a man and woman divorce and then one is saved? Are they not permitted to marry or must they return to their former husband, and what if he remarried?
And since I was bringing up men not being Godly leaders today, it goes into those men who beat their wives. Many women think they should remain in this because they're told to submit to their husbands and they are confused by this. Scripture also says men ought to love their wives. But if they don't? In 1 Corinthians 7, people use this to show that a woman should remain no matter how horribly she is treated. Men have often used this to claim a woman can be beaten because she's to submit to her husband. My first husband did that. He kinda went over a religious deep end, talking out two sides of his mouth, proclaiming God in one breath and cursing in the next. And his view was women were to do what the man said. Even to the point of threatening my life.
Another area that came to me this morning as I listened to Matthew. One should pray in secret. Yet Daniel went and prayed three times a day with his windows open even knowing the law that was passed. David danced and praised openly in the street. Today the church often thinks we need to shout out an amen and loudly worship and this is an area that gave me trouble because I prayed quietly to myself. I'm not a shouter, never have been. They will bring up how we can shout at ballgames and not in church. Well no...I never shouted at games either. Just not my way.
So, my point...are all these scriptures contradictory? I say they are not. But people will take a point of scripture and use it to the fullest measure religion allows. And here is why I say that....
Just as Mary stated about her teaching, I know that God has told me that I will teach new converts. By adhering strictly to women not teaching men, then that's the same as saying I was not led by the Spirit, nor Mary. Who determines who is led? Many claim they're led and often both have very valid points even though they can sometimes seem to be in opposition. And by opposition....
Deborah was known as a woman of great wisdom and spiritual depth whose decisions were guided by her ability as a prophetess and was a judge. 1 Corinthians 11 tells us that every woman who prophesies should do so with her head covered. Yet Paul also said women are not to speak. How do you not speak and prophesy? How do you not teach and prophesy? How was Deborah considered a prophetess and guided by wisdom and spiritual depth if she was to not be permitted to lead men?
2 Kings 22
13 Go ye, enquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us.
14 So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and they communed with her.
15 And she said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me,
16 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read:
Men went to seek advice/teaching from Hulda a prophetess.
Luke 2:
36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; 37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. 38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
Anna was a widow...no husband with her, and yet "all of them" (men and women) came to her to hear her teachings of the Lord.
Soooooooooooooo
My point...
We can use religion to single out a verse and state this is it, in a nutshell, finished, end of discussion, or...
We can take entire scripture and apply it to various circumstances.
- Can a woman divorce? Can she remarry after divorced?
- Can a woman teach? With or without a husband? How does she obey the other rules of rebuking and prophesying without it? And we're also told in the last day God will pour out his Spirit and men and women will prophesy.
- Should we pray openly or quietly to ourselves?
We can't use the Bible in a black and white and ignore the various scriptures that allowed for Godly wisdom to be used through a woman, or to be used in areas of divorce considering many men do not love their wives as the Bible teaches, or to pray quietly or openly. There are scriptures for time and proper place. So to say no woman can teach or preach is to ignore scripture where they did just that. It is to ignore teachings to rebuke false teachers or to prophesy. To ignore scripture about deferring to husbands for those women without husbands.
To the point...this is why there is so much division in my unedumacated (not even knowing what this term hermeneutics was until I looked it up this morning) opinion. Each church will grasp a concept and run with it to it's fullest extent without allowing for other scriptural reasoning. To say women cannot preach or teach, or no one should ever divorce, or we should pray silently at all times or pray publicly in church is to ignore a plethora (I do know what that word means) of scripture that seems to be in opposition but is not....instead it is complementary. Each scripture working together to form a whole picture.
And now time to get to work.
Climbing off my toadstool...err pedestal.
- Can a woman divorce? Can she remarry after divorced?
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Permalink Reply by Amanda on
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Seek,
You said: " I know that wives are to submit/defer to their husbands but if it is saying women are to submit to "men", where's that leave off...men on the street, men who don't have their best interests at heart? What I'm seeing is that God made women to be a "helpmate" and not a stepping stone."
My view of submission in the marital relationship might be a little controversial, but I shared it in a comment in another discussion on AAG awhile back, but this doesn't pertain to women teaching men.
The finished work of Christ on the cross, and the blood of the new covenant brings healing and restoration for all who repent, believe, and receive Jesus. This means that the interdependent relationship that God instituted in the marital relationship between a husband and a wife before the Fall can be restored, at least to some degree, now.
Yes, the fallen flesh of woman still wants to control man, and the fallen flesh of man wants to abuse the power to rule over woman, but in Christ, neither one in the marriage is to control the other but for many couples, it is a constant battle, and especially if one of them isn't saved.
Men are to lead the family, but it doesn't mean as a totalitarian dictator (not that anyone is saying that).
We are to walk in the Spirit, and Ephesians 5:22-33 shows us the Christ-like qualities that each one of us, when allowing Jesus to live in and through us, can bring into marriage.
Hence, submission is to be mutual if both are born again believers seeking the will of God in the relationship.
Ephesians 5:21
English Standard Version (ESV)
21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
In other relationships we are to submit to one another as well.
We are called, as well, to submit to those in authority, and authority is mentioned in the verse 1 Timothy 2:12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. ESV
There's an order in the way God created man and then woman and how they fell into sin. I'm just making a guess, but it looks like women are more susceptible to being deceived than men, and that's why Satan targeted Eve. I've always wondered what 1 Peter 3:7 means by woman being the weaker vessel, perhaps it's not just physically but mentally, too.
My POV is that 1 Timothy 2 does restrict the ministry of women today just as much as back then. The thing about God's Word is that it remains accurate over time and is actually eternal as well. We must avoid the teachings that would seek to change it to make it adapt to the current times. It already adapts and is current.
The bible is one of God's "tools" that explains the realities of life to us. In it's pages we learn what God is like ... He is personal, not just a force or a power. He acts and speaks and relates. He chose to reveal himself to us through creation (which is another of His "tools") and through the bible and through ongoing illumination. We are able to have personal relationships with the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit. We have one God who is a triune God. Nothing is beyond his knowledge. Nothing can defeat God... The God of the Bible is true reality.
God said, “Let there be ... and there was" (Genesis 1:3). The fact of creation by God is clearly affirmed ... He is the first and final source of all that is.
In Ecclesiastes we read this: He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (3:11)
Of course we are on a journey to learn about God and God's creation and God's Word. God put that in our hearts but also has revealed to us that no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end, try as he or she might. I do try :) For me, many passages in Scripture are very difficult to discern God's intended meaning, try as I might there, too. I truly identify with you in this respect and seek truth.
Yesterday, Charles Stanley had a good sermon about resting in the faithfulness of God.
http://www.intouch.org/broadcast/this-week-on-tv
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Well I know the views on 1 Timothy but if we take it just as written as we're to do all scripture...Paul didn't say: God does not permit a woman to teach. He clearly spoke of what he permitted.
Yes, the fallen flesh of woman still wants to control man, and the fallen flesh of man wants to abuse the power to rule over woman
Being God created a helpmate, it doesn't appear to me either was to "rule" the other but to help one another with men being the head of the house as you can't have two leaders when they disagree.
As for women being more easily deceived, I guess that goes by the number of deceived men absent from the church today. Quite a few wives come to church alone each week in our congregation. My friend Robin's husband still angry with God for what happened in his family. She hasn't been deceived. He has. -
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By deceived, I'm referring more to the verses in 1 Timothy 2 that are explaining why women are not to teach men, concerning biblical doctrine and truth.
By saying what I said about the fallen flesh of husband and wife still wanting to rule over one another instead of them mutually submitting, I'm referring to the battle that we all have with the flesh though born again. God created people to be interdependent, meaning they depend on one another as well as are able to meet the dependency of one another. We have needs that only one another can meet (dependent) and we are able to meet the needs of one another. We are interdependent. The "one another" Scriptures describe interdependency. -
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