Angelquill

For me, at least, it is a matter of following Jesus Christ. Did He keep the Sabbath? Well, He said that He was Lord of the Sabbath and that the Sabbath was made for man. He said that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. He never said that the Sabbath had been abolished or changed. If you really stop and think about it, isn't Saturday THE "day off"? Isn't it when most big events are planned? Family get togethers, the "big game", trips to the beach, that all important date, etc, etc, etc....where did this notion first start? Of course, the Sabbath was never intended to be THE designated day for worship. It was intended to be a day of rest...both for the individual, and, maybe even more important, the people around him. So, for all of these reasons, I believe the Sabbath is still valid, and I do keep it in my house. I do not condemn others who do not, of course. Each one must honor God in his or her own way. This is one of mine. It may not be for someone else.

Suppose science ever does manage to create life in the lab. (Don't hold your breath, btw.) Do you think that would somehow prove that God does not exist? No, my friend. All that will have been proven is that God did, just as He said, begin with the dust of the ground. Now, when science can begin with a total vacuum...a "nothingness"...and will it's own dust into existence... well, then you might have a case. Let us know when that happens...

Doesn't the world honor God's Sabbath, whether it would or no? What day is the "day off"? Why do people say "thank God it's Friday"? (That always makes me smile) What is the usual day for family get togethers, barbeques, the big game, that trip to the beach, the school dance, the big date, etc, etc, etc? Isn't it Saturday? Why is it a "burden" to take...and maybe more importantly, to give the people around you...a day of rest? Husbands, a whole day of not being nagged by your wife with her "honeydo" list. Wives, a whole day of no housework or cooking. Kids, a day without chores. Just a day to relax and enjoy each other...what a blessing is that? Of course, if you are lucky enough to afford servants to work for you, or if you own a business, those employees get Saturday off, too...I can see how that might be an inconvenience, especially for business owners who want to take advantage of Saturday shoppers who have the day off and Friday's paycheck in hand. But then, Christians aren't supposed to be too attached to material things. Remember the rich young ruler? You cannot serve God and Mammon...

IMHO, people who argue over which day is the Sabbath are arguing over the wrong thing. The Sabbath was never about an officially designated day of worship. That is a vanity of man. For those ancient people, every day was a day of worship...as it ought to be for Christians today. Here is the original command as it came from God's Hands to Moses: Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Do you see anything in there about a designated day for worship? I don't. The sacrifices and the prayers were made daily. The temple, when it was built, was open daily, as were the synagogues. For them, their lives centered around their worship...as it ought to for us. As for whether it is still valid...some people think that, because we are under a New Covenant, we are no longer accountable to God for His law...no not even the Ten Commandments. I'm not exactly sure how they work that out, since, surely, things like lying, stealing, murder, adultery, etc are still sins...the only one of the ten, it seems, that people have an objection to is this one...and it seems that the argument is mainly about what day to go to church. Seems silly to me, since, as we see here, the commandment is not even about that. For me, however, I am following Jesus, not some man. Did Jesus keep the law? Then I will also...at least, I will do my level best. Did Jesus teach others to keep the law? Then so shall I...as well as I can understand it. Let others do as they will. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Ooh, I love this topic! In those verses, Paul cannot be addressing women who were in the ministry, but rather those in the congregation who were out of order. How do we know this? We have many such proofs, many from Paul himself. Here is a partial list of women who were all in influential positions of leadership in the early church. Pheobe (Romans 16:1-2): This woman was a deaconess of the church in Cenchrea, who was beloved of Paul and many other Christians for the help she gave to them. She filled an important position of leadership. It would be a difficult stretch of the imagination to say that this woman fulfilled her duties without ever speaking in the church! Priscilla (Acts 18:26): Priscilla and her husband Aquila are often mentioned with great respect by Paul. Together they were pastors of a church in Ephesus, and were responsible for teaching the full gospel to Apollos. We are informed that they both taught Apollos, and pastored the church together. In fact, Priscilla is sometimes listed ahead of Aquila when their names come up. This has led some to speculate that of the two, she was the primary teacher and her husband oversaw the ministry. At any rate, we see here a woman in a very prominent position of teaching and pastoring. (Other references to Priscilla and Aquila are Acts 18:2, 18; Romans 16:3, and I Corinthians 16:19). Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3): Here we see reference to two women who were "true yokefellow" and who labored with Paul in the advancement of the gospel. Junia (Romans 16:7): In this verse we see Paul sending greetings to Andronicus and Junia, his "fellow-prisoners" who are of note among the apostles. Junia is a woman's name. In some modern translations, an "s" has been added (Junias) because the translators were so sure a woman could not be an apostle, that they assumed a copyist has accidentally dropped the "s." However the proper male ending would have been "ius," not "ias." No church commentator earlier than the Middle Ages questioned that Junia was both a woman and an apostle. Though there were other women throughout the Bible in positions of leadership, such as prophetesses, evangelists, judges, leaders, etc., the above references should be enough to establish that women were indeed a vital and normal part of church leadership. Paul expected women to speak in the church, or else why would he have given the following directive? It would have been useless to give directions for women who were speaking in the church, if they were never allowed to do so. 1 Corinthians 11:5, "But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven." Furthermore, if Paul believed that all women should never teach or speak in church, why does he commend many women who did just that? With all this in mind, what then do we make of the troubling verses that command women to be silent in the churches? First of all, we must interpret those verses in light of what we have just established--that there were women in leadership positions of the church. Obviously, Paul is not writing to them. He must be addressing another issue entirely--the women who were loud and unruly during the service, causing disorder and confusion.. When he wrote the Corinthians, he was dealing with a church that was very disorderly in their services. Much of the letter was spent correcting excesses and abuses. Some of these pertained to women in particular and some were to the entire church. Paul is not being prejudiced against women when he instructs the Corinthian women to keep silence. In the early church the seating arrangement was quite different from our modern day churches. Men were seated on one side of the church while the women and children were seated on the opposite side. This is still practiced in many cultures today. The women of Christ's day were generally uneducated and usually only the men were privileged with an education. Due to this situation, when the church met the women were tempted to shout across the room and ask their husbands the meaning of whatever was being taught. This disturbed the service. Paul was simply saying during the service, "Women, keep your children quiet and you be quiet, and if you have anything to ask your husbands, wait until you get home." Because of the new equality that Christianity brought to women, it could be that some of them were taking their freedom too far, to the point of being obnoxious. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he gave him a similar directive. Again, it is important to understand the context in which the letter was written. In I Timothy, a careful reader becomes aware that many severe heresies and false teachings that were being dealt with. We can draw a conclusion here that many of the proponents and victims of the false teachings were women. Timothy pastored in Ephesus, and it has been suggested that goddess worship might have played a large part in Paul dealing so severely with the women. Ephesus was a primary center of the worship of Diana or Artemis. The heresies being taught might have suggested that women were authoritative over men and had higher access to spiritual knowledge than men did. Regardless of the particulars, in both cases we can see that Paul is dealing with specific incidents in specific churches for very particular reasons. We must understand that many of Paul's epistles dealt with local problems and his commandments are not meant to be taken as "commandments" across the board for all situations. Rather, we are to seek the Lord for the basic principal that needs to be incorporated in our churches. Because of Old Testament precedents that had already been set, apparently it never occurred to Paul to re-establish the case for women in ministry. Why would he need to? The early church took it as a matter of course that Jesus would call and ordain anyone He chose--and that settled it! As a matter of fact, the Bible mentions a prophetess who was in the Temple when Jesus was brought there as a baby. Her name was Anna (Luke 2:25-35), and she was one of two people who recognized Jesus as the Messiah because of her sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Paul's writings are sometimes misunderstood today because we do not know all the details that led him to write as he did. We must rely on the Holy Spirit, and the rest of the testimony of Scripture to interpret how we are to apply these things to our everyday lives. Scripture should always be compared with other Scripture and the context taken into consideration. Even in Paul's day, there were those who tried to twist the meaning his words. "...His (Paul's) letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do other Scriptures, to their own destruction" ( 2 Peter 3:16). It is a fair conclusion that the testimony of the bulk of Scripture, church history and God's anointing upon them, all speak plainly for women being able to fulfill all positions of the five-fold offices of apostle, prophet, pastor, evangelist and teacher.

Surely, if you have questions, you ought to be able to ask them? I don't think it is wrong to question our faith...for me, at least, my experience has been that from great questions has come even greater faith. Faith that cannot be tested, cannot be trusted...

The part I don't get is... If you are an "unbeliever"...why would you "take umbrage" at being called one? Or do you have a problem with being an "unbeliever"? Cuz I could understand if that were the case. You do know that God is listening, or don't you? He is only waiting for you to talk to Him.