Scripture says a woman should not be president

Aaron, I am going to assume (via your website) that you are married. Using the same passage (1Cor.11), Paul speaks of the natural order of things is to be maintained in the church (and according to you outside). Are you willing to back that up with your actions in your obedience to God's Word. Does your wife wear a head covering (not just her hair), but an actual head-covering as the Scripture commands her to in 1Cor.11? This is in keeping with "the natural order of things" as it signifies the natural order of the headship of the man.

 

What any of us does or doesn't do is irrelevant to the discussion. In 1 Cor. 11, Paul appeals to nature and rank among the angels, not to some rite that is simply to be abandoned outside the church walls.

 

Your appeal is to order. Your appeal to order originally came from 1Cor.11. You are still using 1Cor.11 as you reference angels, which is another point of "order" (pardon the pun) in Paul's discussion of "order." The wearing of the head-covering was a sign "in the church" that she was submissive to her husband, or more accurately that her husband was the head, even as Christ was the head of the church. The entire passage is about order and headship.

If you are willing to jump from there to the secular and state that a woman must be submissive to a man in the secular world, and thus cannot be a president, why do you ignore the other commands in the same passage of Scripture which you use as your apologetic. If you say that a woman must submit to a man, and use 1Cor.11, then of a necessity use must insist that your wife wear a head-covering to a place of worship. Why the double standards? And if you are going to apply the one to the secular world as well why not the other? Perhaps your wife should wear a head-covering everywhere she goes (the secular world) as a sign of her submissiveness to you, or your headship in the family.
Is this not true?

 

Very good.

Who said I ignor them?

Who said I have a double standard? If the Bible instructs me to do something that I am not doing, then I am in disobedience. It's as simple as that. But my obedience (or lack thereof) is not the subject of this thread.

What saith the Lord? That's the topic.

The Lord either said the head of the woman is the man in all civil and ecclesiastical order, or He didn't.

Now, did He, or didn't He?

 

He didn't.
Here is what 1Cor.11:2 says, right before Paul brings up the matter of headship in verse 3. I have included the accompanying notes from the Geneva Bible.

An ordinance is a command. These commands to both men and women were given to the local churches, particularly this one at Corinth. The chapter later concludes with instructions concerning the ordinance of the Lord's Table. To take these instructions out of their given context of the church and apply them to the secular world is to do grave injustice to the Word of God. One might say it is wrongly butchering the word of truth instead rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

The Scriptures clearly present the Divine institution of government as the protocol for human/civil regulation and in that respect "We the trinity" makes sense but beyond that, types of government do appear to be given by God to humanly sovereign choices. I don't suspect you are sympathetic to theocratic ideology in government but will you expand a bit more your thoughts above (and if this is too much a sidebar then I understand)? Thanks.

 

You are quite right. I was simply using a parallel phrase "we the trinity" as a synonym for God. It is God sovereign right to set up governments as He will. It is a God-ordained institution, which according to Rom.13, we are ordered to obey. That is all I meant.

 

When Paul established the truthfulness of the "cannons", he appealed to universal, non-optional principles of nature and the world of spirits. These principles determined his context, not the other way around.

 

You are way out in left field. Get back to the context of the passage. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth. He is addressing some of the problems that were in the church, that church. He gives some illustrations from nature, and cites a reason of the head-covering because of the angels in heaven. He gives instructions concerning the Lord's Supper. All of this has to do with the Local Church. None of it can be applied to a secular society.
To say that the principles that you draw from this passage determines the context is foolishness. Proper hermenutics teaches that the principles come from the passage, not the other way around. What you are doing is exactly what the Catholic does. "Let's see; I want to prove purgatory from the Bible. That is the principle, and I must therefore show how it is true through this passage." The mind is already made up before the Scripture is approached. No wonder the RCC is so deep into heresy. Every cult approaches the Scripture in much the same way. Principles do not determine context; it is the other way around. The context or the passage teaches what the principles are.

 

Okay, thanks. I concur.

 

Which are universal and non-optional, and which bring meaning and authority to Paul's letter, not the other way around.

To be precise, the reason a women needs "power on her head," is because of the angels. Again, Paul's allusion to the world of spirits brings meaning and authority to his letter. Not the other way around.

Women ruling over men is either against nature or not. Paul said it is, and more, it should be obvious to the most carnal and casual observer.

 

Your arguments have much merit about what was said.
Your arguments have little merit about what was meant.

However, I'll say this and fly:

The President of the USofA is a public servant
and does not have the rule over anybody.
Women can be PResident of the USofA and violate
NO scripture.

 

The servant role has nothing to do with authority. Jesus came as a servant. And to suggest that the President has no authority over anyone is to either misuderstand the position of President or to work hard to justify that which cannot.

Christians have no business dividing a Christian lifestye froma secular one as if we can act one way sometimes and another way at other times. This is divided loyalties at best and hypocritcal at worst.

 

But we must respect the context of Scripture.

For instance...head coverings? "keeping silent?" that is a worship context, and can't be applied across the board.

IMO, this issue--a political one--is not addressed by the Scriptures addressing the home, and the church.

I remain with my statement: Woman president is not a Biblically addressed issue.

 

Obviously directly it is not. What so many people missout on is looking for God's heart on the matter. God placed man in charge in the home and in the church but somehow we should believe he has a different view of the order of things in goverment leadership?

The answer to this is quite clear.

 

To stake your claim on just one passage of Scripture (not looking at the overall entirety of Scripture, but rather ignoring it), is putting yourself, hermeneutically, on very shaky ground. First and foremost the chapter was written to a local church, the Corinthian church in particular. It is therefore applicable to churches, and that context nowhere warrants a context outside of a local church. Inasmuch as we celebrate the Lord's Supper within the body of the believers that compose a local church, would you expect either H.Clinton (if she were to get in) or even the present Bush administration to be celebrating the Lord's Supper at the White House as an governmental administrative ordinance? Sounds ludicrous doesn't it. This chapter begins and ends with "ordinances," and Paul admonishing "the church" to keep them, not the government.

The wearing of head-coverings is in the context of the worship service of the church. I am sure that in an informal fellowship it would not be required, even though it would be "in a church building," or even in a business meeting. Do you honestly think that a woman ought to have her head covered 24/7? That's a tough one. Does she ever go swimmng? I don't beleive you can extract that from the context of 1Cor.11. It is too far removed from contex.

Now look at other Scripture which have duly been ignored.
Has anyone brought up the Book of Esther and its implications?
Esther was a monarch--a Queen. Certainly there was a pagan king that had the ultimate authority over her. But what lesson (allegorically) do we learn from this book.
Esther was put into the highest possible governmental possition that there was, a postion far above that of any one in her own nation. Her words were "If I perish I perish." She, in fact, became the Savior of the nation of Israel, willing to die for the nation if need be. Esther had more power than any other person in the nation of Israel, even though she was wise enough to listen to the advice of her uncle, Mordecai. Was Esther ruling over a man? Absolutely--many men. She was the one that managed to get Haman hung!

Different ones have already made a case for Deborah, and for some others in the OT. These cannot be avoided. We have at least two women mentioned in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew one.

The secular principle that God has set up is that Government is a God-ordained institution. God sets governments and God takes governments down.

Queen Victoria was a Godly Queen. Her popularity was such among the people that to this day she is the only British monarch that Canada has a holiday named after her--"Queen Victoria Day," May 24. I believe that "standing" during the "Hallelujah Chorus" of Handel's "Messiah" is a tradition that started with her.

I asked before: If Benazir Bhutto, a Muslim and a woman wins an upcoming election in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, will you condemn the government just because it has a female as its head. That I will expect from some of the extremist elements of Pakistan, but from you??

Do you condemn all the past Queens of England, of France, of the Netherlands?
What of PrimeMinister Thatcher? Was she not of God either?

Every government is ordained of God, despite what your theological view is. Your theology has nothing to do with government. The government is from God. And in this democracy the people get what they deserve, and God gives them what they deserve.
"Righteousness exalteth a nation."

 

It does where principles from outside the church are brought in as evidence for the decorum to be observed inside the church, e.g. nature and angels.

The order observed in nature and the world of spirits bears directly on human governments.

The woman is to have power on her head. The head coverings, or veils rather, in that society were the symbol of that power. The Corinthian women were removing those symbols in Christian gatherings, no doubt because of a carnal understanding of the equality of men and women in the Gospel. Paul explained that their practice was against nature (and therefore against nature's God), and an affront to angels, who themselves submit to angels of higher rank in their world.

Esther had no civil authority. And after Haman's reversal, it wasn't Esther that was given the king's signet ring, it was Mordecai.

Which has been answered.

They weren't avoided.

An institution cannot be both a secular and divine institution. That's like saying marriage is both secular and divine, and that only Christians must avoid same sex marriage.

When women rule over men, it is a rebuke of the sinfulness that nation, Isaiah 3:12.

The fact of the matter is this...all men everywhere are responsible to obey God. The head of every man is Christ. This is a universal, non-optional principle. Nations that fall fall because they do not submit to the authority of God and His laws, both of which are manifest in nature.

A secular state is an idolatrous state, and once you turn from the Creator to the creation for government, then confusion (Feminism and homosexuality) and every evil work is the result. And once that cup of iniquity is full, God will judge that state according to the things that were written to us, His people.

The Great Commission is to teach all nations to observe all the things that Christ has commanded. Rulers are responsible to the Word of God.

 

Aaron your hermeneutics is wanting. Perhaps you need a refresher in that subject. The context is the local church, and not outside of the local church. The principles do not extend outside of the local church. The subject is headship, in specific--the headcovering of the women in the local church. Every verse in the passage relates to that one particular subject.

Just as you cannot draw doctrine from the parables of Jesus (the illustrate doctrine already taught--not teach new doctrine), so you cannot take the illustrations Paul uses and teach doctrine from them. That is not hermeneutically correct. It is out of context to do so. There is one poster on this board who a few years ago (2004) helped me to exegete this passage well. I will quote what he said:

Between 11:2 and 11:16, every verse relates to a woman's headcovering--even the illustrations that Paul uses. Thus to use those illustrations to try and make your point about submisveness is entirely out of context. It all relates to worship, to prophecy, to prayer, and nothing more.

 

We could go back and forth ad nauseum and not convince one another, but I think we've both stated our positions well enough to know where each other stands.

 

Every vote counts!