Women in the pastorate and pulpit...

She did not have authority. She spoke God's word to him. That would be like me going to the president and saying "God says to follow Him". That does not mean I have authority over him.

No - it does not say that Priscilla was a pastor. There was a church meeting in their house. My husband and I have a small group meeting in our home. I am not the leader, he is.

So you say that women are NOT saved by bearing children? It is not speaking of salvation, by the way. Do you negate a Scripture because it doesn't make sense in your mind?

No - not when it speaks of "husband". I've never had a husband. Besides, this is speaking specifically of qualifications of a role in the church - not generic mankind. Context is quite important.

Who had authority over men? The modern women you speak of are teaching women. If men decide to come to their conferences, that is their choice but they are speaking to women. And not one of them hold the position of pastor or deacon, do they?

You are reading into the Word what your preconcieved notions are. You decided that "husband" does not mean husband since "man" means mankind. However, in the context, no one can come to that conclusion. It is important to take the whole of Scripture - and understand that not every commentary and critic is correct.

I don't know. But to me, the woman being the leader is a sign of illness. The rest of it is confirmation.


**by the way, to multi-quote, you want the section that you are quoting to be surrounded by the code [ quote] with no spaces between the bracket and the q and a [ /quote] again without the space. That will make a box around what you want to quote. To do what I did above, I did two quote codes before what I said, closed one of the quotes at the end of what I said and then closed the other quote outside of what you said. HTH.

Once again bolds are just separation, not anything else.[/QUOTE]

 

First off, no one is arguing that women should not be in ministry - but that the ministry offices are limited in some cases to just men. Pastor, deacon, elders and bishops (some of which are interchangeable - I'm just using the common and Biblical terms) are all to be filled by only men.

Now, let's take a look at the passages and study them (all Scripture is from the ESV):

Daughters shall prophesy and the female servants will have God's Spirit poured out on them. That is not showing anyone in ministry. Note that God says "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh" - it's not just the leaders that this is speaking of but all people.

Where does this say that she was in ministry? She was a prophetess, but she was not in authority or in leadership. She praised God - I would hope all of us would do so.

Deborah was a judge and a prophetess. Not a church leader. She was also a unique situation and not one to base an entire doctrine on.

Once again, we see a prophetess and not a pastor.

Once again, we have a prophetess. But note what she did in the temple - did she teach? Did she have any authority? No. She prophesied which is clearly allowed in Scripture - even by Paul who said that women are to be silent in the church.

So, being a prophet is fine for a woman. However, that is not an office in the church. It is a gift from God. Scripture is clear that the offices of the church are to be held by men of good reputation. No where can we say that a pastor, deacon, elder, or bishop is to be a woman. It just doesn't fit in with the whole counsel of Scripture.

But women are very vitally important in the church. Without women, I think churches would struggle greatly because women are the ones who help the rubber to meet the road. My husband is a pastor and I am his wife. I have many responsibilities in the church from leading a new mom's group to doing a lot of the computer work (I'm responsible for the website which is growing as I work on it and also for the computer and graphics for Sunday morning). I also help out wherever I'm needed in organizing events, doing manual labor and teaching classes to women if necessary. So I'm certainly no wallflower. But the roles of pastors and deacons in our church only goes to the men.

 

If I tell one of the workers at church that "Pastor said to go up to speak to him", do I have the authority or pastor? The messenger is not the authority. I ask my children often to go get their sibling so I don't have to scream through the house. It does not give them authority over the sibling. *I* am the authority.

Lydia was a worker of fine purple goods. She became a believer and had Paul and Timothy stay with her. What else do you want to know?

What is your interpretation - and for that matter, what is mine? If childbirth is not important, then why did Paul mention it?

Because it can be interpreted that way. However, there are qualifications.

An overseer must be the husband of one wife. A woman does not have a husband - even if she's married to another woman. They both would be considered wives (although since homosexuality is not acceptable by God, we know this is a disqualification in and of itself).

For deacons, not only does Paul say that they are to be the husband of one wife but he describes their wives! Once again, that cannot be a woman.

Are they pastors?

The word means "whoever" or "whatever". What the translation says isn't as great of an importance as the context and what God said. Translations aren't perfect. But even so, "If anyone wants to be a police officer, they must be over 21 years old". Does this mean that a 14 year old is qualified to be a police officer? No. Just because it says "if anyone" doesn't mean that everyone is qualified. If you meet the qualifications, then you are qualified to be in that position. Since the qualifications of the offices in the church include having a wife or being the husband of one wife, then that would disqualify women, wouldn't it?

 

Why not? Scripture does.

 

When one comes to a faulty conclusion, there is error. Are we not to correct the error? There is error in this case because Scripture is quite clear. We go digging to find an exception and by doing so, we find a couple of women who God used in a certain way and then use that to prove our idea. But it is like saying "Pit bulls fight so I won't get a dog to help my blind son". One has nothing to do with the other.