Women in the Church today

[Floatingaxe]

Thank-you Tiro, You know your stuff! Welcome to Worthy!

Blessings!

[firehill]

Hee hee! Here's the Amplified:

33However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [[a]that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. [i Pet. 3:2.]

and The Message:

What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.

Amen?

Yes, Amen, except for the Living Bible's added words to v.33 "So again I say, a man must love his wife as part of himself; and the wife must see to it that she deeply respects her husband - obeying, praising and honoring him.' "The italicized segment of this quote is a man-made fabrication that is absent in the original text and which violates its meaning. The requirement for wives to 'obey, praise and honor' their husbands finds support neither in this verse nor anywhere else in Scripture. Such terms are obviously borrowed from the language of LITURGY and WORSHIP. THEY PERTAIN TO OUR APPROACH TO GOD-NOT TO MAN.' Beyond Sex Roles, Gilbert Bilezikian, p.306

Hello, Tiro3.

[Ovedya]

Galatians 3:28 IN CHRIST there is neither male nor female, slave or free, etc etc.... It is God who chooses his own pastors. Too many people.... men included... are taking that role upon themselves not having a call from God at all. Those who GOD calls, can preach, teach, be a pastor in the church, even Senior pastor if God so moves her... if she is qualified ... as any man should be as well.

This verses does not permit women to teach! It's a complete misapplication of the verse!

[Ovedya]

So then: God is neither male nor female. Yet he calls the church His bride, and at the end of the Bible He marries this corporate bride.

I see now.

Yes, yes.

I see. So then logically God could have incarnated Himself as a woman and have gone to the cross to die for the sins of human kind. Since God has no gender, as you claim, then He could just have well been a woman Savior. If that's the case, why did the genderless God come as a man? And why did John the baptist announce Jesus' coming comparing Him to a bridegroom ("He who has the bride is the bridegroom)? If God is genderless, then He has no concern for gender. However, the church is the bride of Christ, and a wedding takes place in the millenial kingdom between a man and a woman.

I really have seen a lot of skipping and dancing, and a lot of Biblical deconstructionalism here. But the clear direct words of the Bible simply tell us that God is a man.

[apothanein kerdos]

What we see here is a bigger problem than ignorance of scripture. It is an elevation of the "holy spirit" above Holy Scripture (inspired by the true Holy Spirit). In other words, it goes something like this:

"The holy spirit has led my wife to be a pastor, who are you to question God and His calling on her life?"

The problem is, the early church faced people who used similar logic, and thus we now see the authority in the Bible. We must ask ourselves, is the Bible more important or our claim to the holy spirit? The authority of scripture will always trump a "personal calling." Since this is the case, any woman who claims she has been called by God to be a pastor is a liar at worst and decieved at best.

A good example is that people keep refering to Adam being the one who brought sin into the world. Wonderful, but Eve is the one who ate the fruit first. Paul spells it out quite clearly that because of this, she has been made to serve under man in both a marriage relationship and church setting. It is an effect of the fall, why is that so hard for people to understand? To argue against it is to argue against Paul.

We are all equal in Christ, but this does not mean we have equal roles.

[Ovedya]

What we see here is a bigger problem than ignorance of scripture. It is an elevation of the "holy spirit" above Holy Scripture (inspired by the true Holy Spirit). In other words, it goes something like this:

"The holy spirit has led my wife to be a pastor, who are you to question God and His calling on her life?"

The problem is, the early church faced people who used similar logic, and thus we now see the authority in the Bible. We must ask ourselves, is the Bible more important or our claim to the holy spirit? The authority of scripture will always trump a "personal calling." Since this is the case, any woman who claims she has been called by God to be a pastor is a liar at worst and decieved at best.

We are all equal in Christ, but this does not mean we have equal roles.

Exactly. That was one of the big points included int he article which IR posted links to (Which, apparently few people here actually read all the way through).

[Ovedya]

1. there were no known male pastors either

2. none of the instructions for church order specifically address pastors

3. there is no Scripture at all that addresses who may or not be given the gift of sheparding.

There are two responses in this thread where I addressed the issue of authority in the church. I pretty much laid out the authority in the Scriptures regarding leadership in the church, and which functions in the church were for the definition and teaching of orthodoxy. The two offices in the church responsible for this kind of shepherding were the apostleship and the eldership. Paul was an apostle: a man. The eldership in the all the churches were also men. What we term as the role of "pastor" today was essentially the same as the elders in the first century church.

[apothanein kerdos]

Hee hee! Here's the Amplified:

33However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [[a]that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. [i Pet. 3:2.]

and The Message:

What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.

Amen?

The Greek word used here is phobeomai. You can turn to all the translations you want, but the Greek word is going to remain the same. You are either going to conclude that this is refering to fear that causes one to take flight, or obedience. Those are, ultimately, the only two definitions that apply to this word. In fact, it comes from the Greek word phobos which means to have fear for ones husband...not fear in a frightening sense, but fear in a respectful sense....respect that leads to obedience.

[Floatingaxe]

God may be masculine in His relationship with us, but He is not a man! He is a spirit! Jesus was a man!

Of course He is concerned with gender, in that He created us that way, but we are equally after His image! Female is also after His image!

[apothanein kerdos]

God may be masculine in His relationship with us, but He is not a man! He is a spirit! Jesus was a man!

Of course He is concerned with gender, in that He created us that way, but we are equally after His image! Female is also after His image!

Image refers more to personality, that which makes us human, that to our physical composite.

It is true to say that God does not necessarily have a gender, but what we do know is He always refers to Himself in the masculine form.