Marriage & Meaning in the Time!

[BibleStudent100]

On 9/19/2021 at 2:58 AM, Faith-Not-Fear said:

Yes, we are physically weaker than men. But the weaker vessels in ancient times were akin to an ornate, beautiful vase that you would place on a pedestal or a small vessel used to store a sweet smelling perfume, not the heavy vessel you would use to slop the hogs.

Good morning Faith:

I too, have heard this illustration or iterations of it that nicely provide insight into this text's meaning.   Assigning a woman honor as to a weaker vessel does not devalue or demean her as dwelling with his wife “according to knowledge” means that a husband takes into account her strengths and limitations, likes and dislikes, outlook and feelings. A caring husband recognizes and respects personality differences between him and his wife. He shows due consideration for her “in order for [his] prayers not to be hindered.” (1 Peter 3:7) A husband who fails to respect his wife’s feminine virtues endangers his own relationship with God. 

[enoob57]

This an excellent scholarship on the subject!!!
What does the Bible say about women pastors? | GotQuestions.org

[missmuffet]

On 9/17/2021 at 2:27 PM, Kelly2363 said:

 

Did my post infer that a wife should tolerate an abusive husband?

No, but some husbands think that the verse for wives submitting to their husbands gives them the right to bully and abuse them. This has been brought up on Worthy.

[missmuffet]

14 hours ago, Starise said:

I think most people just naturally gravitate to what they intrinsically know they are good at. If you told me there was this little person growing inside me and in 9 months it was going to come out I think I would need medication to deal with that, but then for me it isn't a natural thing. Come to think of it I would need meds after that too, maybe more of them. Mr. Mom would be Mr. Crazy.

The Lord leads us to what we are good at if we follow Him.

The Biblical comparison to marriage is under ideal conditions. The subject you refer to has a 50% percent failure rate the last time I checked leading me to believe it is anything but ideal conditions.

It often makes a lot of people wealthy, those who cater and plan weddings, jewelry makers, those who sell wedding gowns, divorce lawyers, private investigators and marriage counselors....the list goes on. 

The human expression used as a comparison to the heavenly version between us as the church and Yahweh is woefully lacking. On a good day it takes work. On a bad day.....well you don't wanna know.

First of all God definitely knew what He was doing when He gave the job of pregnancy and giving birth to women. We wouldn't have much of a population if God gave that job to men. 

Weddings are extremely expensive. It doesn't need to be that way if those who cater to weddings were not as greedy. The same thing goes for high school kids and proms. 

Marriages are much more successful if both the man and the woman are born again Christian. 

[Kelly2363]

18 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

irst of all God definitely knew what He was doing when He gave the job of pregnancy and giving birth to women. We wouldn't have much of a population if God gave that job to men.

 

No but the asylums would be in a roaring trade! 

Thats if I take @Starise at his word.

So whilst I can't give birth I have delivered a few babies and one time was even given a shot at an elective cesarean. My wife was having an elective cesarean when she was pregnant with our daughter and so I went into the theatre all scrubbed up with my hands held up to show I was clinically clean and the theatre clinician came to me and began to glove me whilst the other clinician began to talk me through the notes. I had to say "Good God woman I put the baby in there you can hardly expect me to take it out." The actual gynaecologist performing the section was right behind me and he roared with laughter. My wife was pale.  

Babies are a joy. And apart from giving birth - which is self evidently an impossibility for a man - the rest is a walk in the park. Two kids - Mmm is ok - three kids - Mmmmmm alright I suppose - but five kids - pure hell. My wife had three kids all in nappies and one in a wheel chair one time. Now that deserves respect. She never once complained. Thank God for the woman. 

[Starise]

49 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

First of all God definitely knew what He was doing when He gave the job of pregnancy and giving birth to women. We wouldn't have much of a population if God gave that job to men. 

I for one, am so very glad this wasn't in my job description.

[Kelly2363]

On 9/17/2021 at 9:05 PM, Kelly2363 said:

When a sister is given these four areas of authority and influence in the church by which she is found in eldership, being the lead pastor, being worship leader, and also being one who directs the vision of the church, then we have in all meaning a woman who has in her hands every part of the local church. And when this open admission of authority is carefully presented in its direction – so that authority is grounded in a woman who is her husband's wife – therein lies a most diabolical deception. If any sister took these things of authority over the churches to herself, by her own will, then she would be easily set aside. For where would authority, then come? But when a sister holds this authority by her husband's consent and approval, then she is in authority as though she were the husband.

 

This element of my original post needs explanation because whilst it may seem as though this is in the narrative diction - what it represents is an actual reality in a church and its effect. 

My personal experience for the entirety of my walk has been that the Lord draws to my attention a spiritual effect in a church and He does that by discernment - but always by sight of a member who is being harmed by a spiritual effect.

This description of a sister being in eldership, being the lead pastor, being worship leader, and also being one who directs the vision of the church is not made up. 

One time I was driving through a town in the north of England, and I saw a group of young lads standing in the quadrant of a large impressive Baptist Church straight ahead of me. As I approached I was immediately quickened in my spirit and one of these lads turned and looked straight at me with no reason to even know I was there because I was screened by the car. It was as though he was asking for help. His expression consisted of a sense of not knowing who he was in Christ. It was as if he could see me and was searching and yet he could not see me at all. He was the only lad who turned and he was more than likely the oldest in this group of eleven or so lads - he was likely just 15 years old. 

Some hours later when I got back to the mission station I asked a friend who I worked with if he knew who the church was and what he made of my discernment. This brother told me that the church wasn't a Baptist Church anymore but was a Pentecostal church and that the church had three elders - with two of them being pastors. In fact this young co-worker I spoke with had fellowshipped there for several months whilst he was waiting for our own building to be renovated. He also explained that the church pastorate had changed since he left. He also described his concerns, which were pastoral, in terms that made perfect sense to me given what I had been led of the Spirit to see in that young man in the church quadrant.

So I researched the church and looked back at their history over a ten year period - I listened to ministry tapes and looked into the governing body in considerable detail. I also went through their current website and traced the historical sites and tried to give some meaning to what I knew was true in that lad - but could not explain in any material way beyond his visible witness and the testimony of my co-worker. What I discovered was precisely what I have said in the now red quote above. I eventually drilled down into their website on line and to a post that gave that precise detail as the detail of the lead pastor who was the wife of the co-lead pastor.

The church was exemplary in its safeguarding as defined by the 2014 Care Act and exemplary in its application of the 2010 Equality Act Section 149 (PSED) precept. It had in place Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) information and numerous other pieces of legislation to protect members and uphold the Laws of England & Wales. In fact their litigant knowledge was impressive. That caught my attention as did the direction of the preaching and the way in which the women of the church were being prepared for a work that was described as a prophetic requirement to take the whole area for Christ - a requirement specifically put as a command and expressed as a charge of God on the women who were told that this had been the will of the Lord from the beginning.

You would think that almost none of this could be in itself a concern seeing as this was not my church and I had no authority to speak into the situation or even speak to the lad.  Yet I have never been able to forget him - And I still feel a burden for him because I knew even those years ago that he did not know how to express his desire to serve the Lord due to the nonsense that the young men and older men were encouraged to practise as a means of supposed spiritual growth amounting to little more than natural and practical things. And where the women attend conferences dedicated to empowering them by upholding politically correct sentiments and laws to the letter of the law even beyond what the law actually required - And all to cover a spiritual ambition to empower women to take the land and finally come into their anointing - being crowned of God. And all this is set into a precept of evangelising the lost. 

This incident and the research that I put into trying to understand why the Spirit had burdened me with that lad in the quadrant of the former Baptist Church building first opened my eyes to something that I had seen in a spiritual reality of a misuse of the gift of prophecy many times and even to the extent that several wives of pastors had exercised a Jezebelic spirit of abuse in my own hearing and sight that had me asking the Lord who the person was, who was being harmed. The Lord showed me and I spoke with him afterwards. He confirmed the effect on him that I discerned coming out of two pastors’ wives. But what I realised about this church in the North of England was that there was a characteristically different effect by brethren in the gifts of the Holy Spirit where the gift of prophecy wasn't a misused part - rather the Law of the land was shaping and reinforcing what the men were already experiencing in the school and the college and the work place - yet pressed into a dead but clearly prophetic claim to an army of women taking an entire region of the UK by right of passage because they were crowned for that glory.  The young men were by that means being defrauded because they were essentially set aside.

So what then is the deep issue beyond the effect on the male youth of this church?

In the entire ministry that was convened over years to these sisters in this church to encourage them to prepare for a regional mission to win others for Christ - not once in the entire process was the Cross mentioned. By contrast the entire process was in truth psychological and natural. It contained not a shred of spiritual worth because even if these sisters could have laid hold of some of its better portions - they would have had no means to ground that benefit in the only remedy the Father has given  us to walk by faith. The Cross of Christ unto death, buried and raised from the dead in Christ, ascended with Christ in Him.

“There is a charge of God for womankind to go and do what God has called her to do.”

So the original post in this thread has to do with this effect. And the slogan above is its meaning. This slogan was taken from their teaching ministry that spanned several years and came to a halt in 2019 due to matters arising out of the Coronavirus Act 2020. It remains to be seen what will happen next year when convention season comes round again. What I did discover was various other ministries grounded in very lively and seemingly healthy churches that had taken this precept to an even more spiritually harmful level of effects amounting to a true Jezebelic spirit.

I can also state factually that I went back and re listened to every session of this ministry again and did so simply to write this last post. Whilst I knew what I had discerned at the time - And was fully persuaded of the need to say it - as I did at the time in my own church - I felt obliged to re look at the evidence itself before making such a clear statement here where this has little seeming purpose. Yet I am also convicted that we all need to begin to draw the threads that have been woven into a false garment and which increasing numbers of churches are now clothing themselves in. 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Kelly2363
Pagination