Woman as an ordained minister

You just made God laugh !

Paul is not our Savior. The Bible is not to be worshiped.

 

How do you know that?

I never said that, the only one suggesting that is you.

But it is to be desired so that we can grow up.

1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:​

HankD

 

I should expect nothing less from one who is setting aside the clear teaching of God's word.

Someone standing for the truth of God's word doesn't make God laugh.

Paul isn't our Savior, but when he spoke and wrote under divine inspiration he did so with the authority of the Savior. His letters carry the same weight as Jesus's words, because that which made up his letters came from God.

The bible is not to be worshipped, but the God of the bible said He has magnified His word above all His name. I don't worship the bible, but in worshipping the God of the bible I respect His word and do not wish to break it.

 

So please clear up for us how he implicated Paul as a Savior and the Bible is to be worshiped.

 

I had to look at your profile to see if you are a Baptist. The Bible specifically speaks against women preaching. How can your church do this?

 

So if you said it was ok for homosexuals to marry in church, would you say that those of us who followed THE BIBLE and didn't allow it were "putting restrictions" on the Holy Spirit?

Nope, women cannot preach. They can teach, but they cannot preach or pastor. Read your Bible. It is not hard to understand on this point. It is very clear.

 

I don't think anyone is saying part of the Bible is useless. It must be taken in context and its historical setting. To ignore these things is to render the Bible insignificant.

Cheers,

Jim

 

No, Jim, its you that renders the Bible insignificant. The "historical setting" argument is just double speak for disregarding what the Bible says when it goes against "modern" thinking. What you are essentially trying to say is that since, in our modern times, women have taken on a more masculine role in society, the parts of the Bible that assume a woman is in a feminine role don't apply. That's hogwash.

 

So, why are women even speaking on this Board? They should be learning in silence, at home, and in subjection to their husbands!!!! As Paul says. To enforce this takes scripture totally out of context, when Paul was dealing with a speciific situation at that time.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Because the Bible doesn't teach us that women aren't allowed to engage in discussion and fellowship. It does teach us that women are not to be Pastors.

 

No, Paul was teaching church practice in all ages. He told Timothy and the Corinthians that women weren't to teach in the church. He told Titus that men were to be elders/bishops. To deny this is to deny one of the clearest teachings in all of scripture.

 

Not a specific situation my friend, to say that is taking the passage out of context. Paul lays out a specific principle about authority. For in that passage in 1 Timothy 2 we see that Paul appeals to creation not culture. He makes an appeal to the first man and woman to set forth a doctrine about all men and women.

Women can share things on this board because this is not a place of authority.

 

Women have a ministry to children and other women.
The office of pastor and deacon is to be held by qualified men.

This is only natural seeing that the woman's anatomy is designed for childbearing and nurturing. The male anatomy is more in keeping with heavy labor, protection and hunting.

It is evident from the Scripture that God has taken these natural elements and elevated them to the spiritual in the realm of the church.

I do see a possible exception drawn from the OT (Huldah and Deborah, prophetesses of the Lord) which, possibly could be applied to NT needs, that when the men through lethargy, cowardice or whatever, fail in their obligations, women can function in these ministries until qualified men step forward and fill the office according to the Scripture.

Some local churches allow for the office of "deaconess" as the wife of a deacon but as a helper and not a leader.

Also the context of these passages which involve gender of those involved in the ministry of teaching do not require total silence in the church environment but their activities are defined in context in other places in the Scripture concerning child-rearing and other women, prayer in the church, etc.

Do we eliminate women's ministry from the Sunday School, Prayer meetings (admittedly some sisters encapsulate a mini-sermon in their prayer) giving testimony and praise, business reports, scribing in business meetings, church socials, Steering Committee, Missions Committee, etc?

I dare say we would have to close the doors of many a local church.

Why would any woman want be a pastor anyway with all the attendant headaches? She has enough to do with the care and nurture of her husband and children and from thence her reward as she does it to the glory of God.

Single women can devote themselves completely to teaching and nurturing church children (their natural inclination), other women and administrative offices (church secretary, librarian, missions, etc) visitation of widows, etc.

Each as we are gendered, gifted and directed by the Spirit through the Scriptures, this is not a difficult or vague matter.

HankD

 

Paul is referencing a particular problem with some women in that societal setting. The same as he does about women not cutting their hair....as was the custom of prostitutes, when their hair was shorn in shame.

There is not one verse of scripture that specifically forbids women from leading or being pastors..not one!

The same passage lists qualifications for deacons, and yet women were deacons in other scriptures, and it is Paul who references them.

I seem to recall that Adam, the man, listened to Eve, the woman, and was thusly deceived. Why didn't the Devil approach Adam directly if only man was the supreme leader? The lesson there was deception, not leadership or dictatorship or even chauvenism, which dominated the majority down through biblical times.

The Bible is the message of salvation throughout, and not lessons in society and political structures. The first remained the same, by grace through faith, the latter was subject to change with time and circumstances, as it does now.

Circumcision was a covenant promise in Old Testament times, but not to-day. Why? This was only for males. Does this mean women were not entitled to saving grace? Or, that they didn't need salvation?

We would be in a sorry state if we followed history, without change, down through the ages. Also, to think of the broken marriages where the man has failed miserably, and the woman takes charge as is her responsibility.

I remember when it was hard to get a man to enter the mission field, and God bless the women who picked up the slack.
Please don't tell me they didn't "pastor" in given situations just ebcause they were called "missionaries". I've been around too long.

Cheers,

Jim

 

To Timothy:

"A bishop them must be blameless, the husband of one wife..."
"One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)"

To Titus:

"If any be blameless, the husband of one wife..."
"Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers."

To the Corinthians:

"Let your women keep silence in the churches (note the plural): for it is not permitted unto them to speak..."

The context declares this to mean teaching in the church.

So we have three different addresses to three different audiences. One is to the church at Corinth in which they were told that women were to keep silence in the churches (plural). One to Timothy, a pastoral epistle (of key note here) in which not only were women not suffered to teach but the qualifications of a bishop restict it plainly to men. One to Titus, another pastoral epistle written to him while he was in Crete in which we see the same kinds of resrictions by way of bishop qualifications.

Not one, huh? These things weren't cultural, they were and are the authority on which we are to determine who is qualified and who is not for the office. Notice this: after Paul gave the qualifications for an elder/bishop to Timothy he gave the qualifications for a deacon. Again, this is restricted to men. When the Jerusalem church was selected the first deacons in Acts 6 the apostles told them to "look ye out among you seven men of honest report..." The NT teaching on this is clear.

 

1 Timothy 2:12

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man;

This one doesn't work for you sir?

 

Open your heart and mind for this message !

We Ordain Women Because We Baptize Girls
Galatians 3:27-29



By Chuck Poole

Baptist minister with Lifeshare Community Ministries in Jackson, Mississippi



“Something there is that does not love a wall, that wants it down,” wrote Robert Frost, leaving us to wonder exactly what that something is that so opposes a wall. For one possible answer, we might see Paul; specifically, what Paul said to the Galatians in chapter three, verses 27-29. In Galatians 3:27-29, Paul tells us something that does not love a wall. In Paul’s mouth, the something that wants walls down is water. Not just any water, though. Paul is talking about the swift, strong, deep, division-drowning water of baptism. Indeed, rarely has anyone thrown such cold water on such old walls as Paul did when he wrote, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

One imagines that Paul’s words about baptism made quite a splash in Galatia. The idea that the walls of race, class and gender are washed away in the water of baptism ran counter to the conventional wisdom of Paul’s world, conventional wisdom that is captured in a popular “men-only” prayer which went like this: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who hast not made me a Gentile. Blessed art thou, O Lord Our God, who hast not made me a slave. Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who hast not made me a woman.” What Paul told the Galatians was that, in the water of baptism, those divisions are swept away.¹ “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Paul told the church at Galatia that they could not embrace the water of baptism while also holding onto the walls of division. Their neat, settled, familiar categories of race, class and gender had been washed away in the water of baptism.

If that’s what Galatians 3:27-29 meant for them then, what does it mean for us, now? I believe it means here what it meant there: In the water of baptism, our culture’s walls of division are washed away. Race, class, and gender remain as human realities, but for those who have been baptized they can no longer be relevant to who’s in or who’s out, who leads by serving or who serves by leading. Men are still male and women are still female, but in the baptized family of faith, in the church of Jesus Christ, it just doesn’t matter. That’s what Galatians 3:27-29 means.

So why have some baptized Christians so steadfastly maintained their denial of certain roles in the church to people based on nothing more than the fact they happened to have been born female? I think they would say, “Because of what the Bible says.” After all, in I Corinthians 14:34-35, the Bible says, “Women should keep silent in the church. They are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate. If there is anything they want to know they should ask their husbands at home. It is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” And then there is I Timothy 2:11 and 12, which says, “Let a woman learn in silence, in full submission. I permit no woman to teach a man.” So, there you go. That’s what the Bible says. End of story. Right? Well, not exactly! The same Bible that gives us I Corinthians 14:34-35 and I Timothy 2:11-12, also gives us Acts 2:17-18, which says, “Thus says the Lord, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Here, God specifically includes daughters and sisters as preachers and proclaimers. Then, of course, there is I Corinthians 11:5, “Any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head.” Obviously, Paul is expecting women to help lead worship, otherwise why would he establish a dress-code for women worship leaders?

Let’s be honest. Here, as in other cases, the Bible speaks with more than one voice. (That’s why we must always interpret any single passage of scripture in conversation with, not in isolation from, the rest of the Bible.) When it comes to the roles of women in the church, the Bible is in a tie. (With itself!)

“But what about the gospels? Didn’t Jesus pick only men for the twelve apostles?” Yes, but weren’t the first voices to proclaim the most important message ever told all women and only women, on the morning of the resurrection? And what about Luke 8:3, which lists the many women who went about with Jesus and the apostles? (And, on a much deeper level, those who would exclude women from ministry on the basis of the Bible probably don’t want to call too much attention to the four gospels. After all, the gospels say that we must give to everyone who begs from us (Matthew 5:42), we must not resist evildoers (Matthew 5:39), we must not own more than one coat as long as anyone has no coat (Luke 3:11), we must make loans without seeking repayment (Luke 6:35), and we must sell our possessions and give the proceeds to the poor if we want to follow Jesus. (Luke 14:33). I know many people who deny women a place in ministry on the grounds that they “believe the Bible,” but who dismiss, with a wink and a nod, the most radical sayings of Jesus, which leaves one to wonder how a person can use two or three verses of scripture to exclude someone from serving God, while simultaneously ignoring many verses of scripture just because they don’t fit the conventional wisdom of North American culture.)

Let’s just be honest about all this. The Bible does not speak with ones seamless, homogenized, unanimous voice on the question of the roles of women in the church. If all we have to go on are the words on the page, then the Bible is pretty much in a tie. (With itself!)

So, what breaks the tie? For me, the tie is broken by the boundary-shattering, wall-removing, fence-climbing, gate-opening Spirit of Christ. But if the Spirit of Jesus is too subjective, if we must limit ourselves to that which is written in black-and-white on the pages of scripture, I would say that the tiebreaker is Galatians 3:27-29, which tells us that we cannot embrace our baptism while also maintaining distinctions in the church between male and female.

Based on all of that, I offer this modest proposal: If anyone should ever ask why your church ordains women, just tell them that, based on a careful reading of the Bible, your church discovered that if you were going to refuse ordination to women, you’d first have to refuse baptism to girls because Galatians 3 says that once a person has been baptized, their gender is no more an issue in the church than the color of their eyes or their hair or their skin. Tell them that based on a careful reading of Galatians 3:27-29, your church ordains men and women because your church baptizes boys and girls.